Yeetle Box - Waterboarding - The Tool Against Terrorism

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WATER BOARDING

Water boarding has been around for centuries. It was a common interrogation technique during the Italian Inquisition of the 1500s and was used perhaps most famously in Cambodian prisons during the reign of the Khmer Rouge regime during the 1970s (see David Corn: This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like for pictures of a Khmer Rouge water board now in a Cambodian museum). As late as November 2005, water boarding was on the CIA's list of approved "enhanced interrogation techniques" intended for use against high-value terror suspects.


In a nutshell, water boarding makes a person feel like he is drowning.

Water boarding involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, then cover his face. Sometimes, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; other times, his face is wrapped in cellophane.

Now that the person is prepared for interrogation, and ready to spill his guts about imminent terrorist plots against the United States, the interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Some have criticized the use of water, saying that, perhaps, it would be difficult for a person to speak during this experience.

However, depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face. Certainly, someone who is choking and gagging can spit out something like, "They're going to hit the World Trade Center on September...." Oops! Like so:



But not like so:



This is not water boarding. This parental abuse.

Now, some people in Washington, D.C. think water boarding is bad. Some don't - like our President and Commander-in-Chief, President George W. Bush. President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

Presdient George W. Bush explained in his weekly radio address, "The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror. So today I vetoed it. I vetoed it, then I vetoed it again. Then Dick [Cheney] set the bill on fire and stomped on it. Then we took the ashes of the bill and threw them into the Potomac River. That's a VEEEEE - TO!"

The bill passed both the House and the Senate. Nevertheless, as the Constitution clearly states, the will of the people does not take precedent over Presidents whose last names begin with the letter "B."

Said President George W. Bush, "This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe - dating all the way back to olden times when America wasn't even America. Like a lot of centuries and decades ago. Even more than four score and seven years ago."



He's running for president of the United States of America.

The horror...the horror...

The Yeetle Box