Posted on 11/09/2007 6:14:39 AM PST by RDTF
A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress yesterday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture and that such a method was never intended for use by U.S. interrogators because it is a relic of abusive totalitarian governments.
Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.
"In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn't know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat," Nance testified yesterday at a House oversight hearing on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques. "It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured."
-snip-
If Mohammed faced waterboarding for 90 seconds, Nance said, about 1.2 gallons of water was poured down his nose and throat while he was strapped to a board. Nance said the SERE school used a board modeled after one from Southeast Asia, though it had leather straps instead of metal clamps.
SERE attendees expect to be released and assume that their trainers will not permanently harm them. Nance said it is "stress inoculation" meant to let U.S. troops know what to expect if they are captured. "The SERE community was designed over 50 years ago to show that, as a torture instrument, waterboarding is a terrifying, painful and humiliating tool that leaves no physical scars -snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You wouldn’t do whatever it took to keep that dirty bomb upwind of your family from going off?
C No. 4 - Interesting thread. Some good comments amongst the posturing and in-fighting.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/11/waterboarding-a-political-mane/#comment-891
Comments I made at SWJ
Using chemicals as a short-cut seems to be out-of-bounds.
Why? No pain.
Hey, I don’t know the reasoning behind why chemicals can’t be used in interrogations. They are specifically forbidden under the letter of the US Code. Seems to me that you can achieve similar effects through sleep deprivation, noise & stress positions — which we know are used. It just takes longer.
I suspect mad_as_he$$ can take care of himself. I did not mean to malign him personally, as I’m sure he understands. We should be able to talk about the Vietnam War frankly.
But if you are offended, mad_as_he$$, I apologize for my snarky comment.
I, for one, have interest in both your research and personal observation.
While I also agree with Mr Nance, I base my agreement only on my revulsion for the practice of torture and some common arguments.
“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men (and rough women, like my National Guard, Iraq vet, M-16A2 expert, Browning .50 caliber M2 preferring, tank and truck mechanic daughter) stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”
- often attributed to George Orwell, or Winston Churchill.
Kipling had Tommy Atkins put it so: “Yes, making mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep...”
You know, You’ve got a GREAT idea. We can start using waterboarding as part of any normal police investigation. They just pull in any old suspect and waterboard the crap out of him/her. After all, it’s not torture.
Or better yet, the IRS can use it as part of any audit. It’s not torture and I’d bet that it would increase tax compliance drastically. Since water boarding is messy I’ll bet there are other interrogation techniques we can use that aren’t torture either.
It’s all in a good cause and as long as it makes everyone “safe” then it should be okay. Especially to protect children.
Well, let's not open another can of worms about what "is" and "isn't" torture. As long as waterboarding works, and isn't torture, let's stick with it. As for the mess, all we have to do is build new courtrooms with drains in the floor. A small price to pay for certain justice.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the waterboarding of Phil Spector.
OJ!
It’s torture? Good! Let’s do more of it and start to win this war.
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