Salon has a detailed piece on the waterboarding techniques used by the CIA during the Bush administration (with consent of the White House):
Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.
The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.
With the sickening new details of the conduct of our government, I have to point out the salient facts again:
Waterboarding is water torture, and until 2006, when BushCo got caught, the practice was nearly universally recognized as torture. Torture is clearly defined in U.S. law. We have legal precedents that demonstrate the use of these laws. We prosecuted Vietnam vets for waterboarding their prisoners. We tried a Japanese member of the military after WWII for waterboarding. A Texas sheriff was convicted of torturing by waterboarding.
We also have our obligations under the Constitution and international agreements, and a clear statement that we are bound to these obligations. (My emphases in what follows).
From the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Para. 2:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land
And here are some excerpts from the CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:
Article 1
(1) For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
Article 2
(1) Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
(2) No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
When the Convention was ratified, the U.S. State Department gave a report to the Committee on Torture:
(3) The United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994, and the Convention entered into force for the United States on 20 November 1994.
(6) Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offence under the law of the United States. No official of the Government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. United States law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a “state of public emergency”) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension. The United States is committed to the full and effective implementation of its obligations under the Convention throughout its territory.
(178) Throughout the United States, its territories and possessions, all acts constituting torture are criminal offences, punishable by appropriately severe penalties. Additionally, acts constituting attempts, “complicity”, “participation” and conspiracy to torture are likewise criminal offences. No single federal statute specifically defines or prohibits torture or directly implements the central provisions of the Convention. Nonetheless, at the time of ratification, it was determined that existing state and federal law was sufficient to implement article 4, except to reach torture occurring outside United States jurisdiction, as discussed below under article 5.
Given that Cheney and others have confessed to authorizing waterboarding, we have very strong evidence that systematic torture was used in our name.
Cheney doesn’t get to redefine our values. Waterboarding IS torture.
This doesn’t simply constitute a “teachable moment”. This is serious criminal conduct undertaken in our name…conduct that, while left un-prosecuted, stains all Americans. The conduct betrays our constitution, and those who died fighting for our constitution and our principles. The U.S. has a long history of prosecuting people who torture by waterboarding–a history that dates back to the late 1800s.
Again, I ask: when will we prosecute the officials who authorized torture, those who were criminally complicit in torture, as well as those who actually carried out the torture?
