1dree5,

Could it be that waterbording is promoted by sick individuals who like performing the act on others.  Killing just does not provide the feeling of empowerment in the same way, and of course the added bonus of forced confessions are always added in the end. 

You may be onto something, we are spending time talking about waterbording and ignoring genocide, I know the Republicans prefer talking about torture rather then the if killing masses of people, seems some of the Dems could be in cahoots.

Thomas, I will provide you with a personal account that proves you are correct.

In 1942 my father was arrested by the Japanese Kempetai (secret police) in Shanghai and taken to Bridge House, an infamous torture chamber, where he was kept for several months in a cage so small he could neither lie down nor stand.  He was interrogated; asked to sign a confession that he was a British agent.

My father refused for two reasons.  First, it wasn’t true.  He was a civilian; the plant manager of a British manufacturing firm.  Second, he thought that he was being asked nothing less than to sign his own death warrant.

Several soldiers pinned my father to a wooden platform.  One held a sponge over his mouth and nose while another poured water onto the sponge. 

I know there are multiple articles that refer to this as “simulated” drowning.  That understates it.  My father could hold his breath only so long, then water ran up his nostrils, into his mouth, down his throat and into his lungs.  He said it was exquisitely painful and frightening.  He thought he would die right there on that platform.

After multiple lapses of consciousness over a span of hours, he signed the confession.  Unsatisfied with his wobbly signature, his tormentors returned to his cage the next day; presenting him with the choice of signing again or another round of waterboarding.  He signed.

After the war, my father’s testimony at the 1948 War Crimes Trials in Hong Kong helped to convict a Japanese general.  It was torture then, and it is torture now.

But waterboarding and other forms of torture are not simply illegal and immoral.  They are just plain stupid.  Torture will extract confessions but there is no way to know whether it has also extracted the truth.  People who are being tortured will tell you whatever it is that they think you want hear, even, as in my father’s case, they think their confession is also their death warrant. 

Anyone now serving, or who has served, in the Executive or Legislative branches of our government who countenanced this abominable practice should be removed from office and prosecuted--that includes Pelosi and Harmon as well as Bush, Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Rumsfeld. 

I know I seem rather adamant about that, but knowing what I know, I think, on behalf of my father and every other victim of this abominable practice, I have the right to be so.

To one commenter who used the analogy” if your family was killed you would want waterboarding to find the killer”.By all professional accounts it does not work.So in essence what you are saying is “I do not care that it does not work I want it used so somebody will confess."Does that make sense.We have prosecuted interrogators from other countries for using this technique and it allows anyone who captures a US military man to do the same thing.All for something that does not work.The quality of intelligence in Iraq has gone up since we abandoned Spanish Inquisition methods of interrogation.Stop watching 24 and start reading what the professionals tell us.

Well at least now we now know why Pelosi has been so adamant to keep impeachment off the table.  She was afraid that if we got into exposing the criminality of the Bush regime, it would implicate her.

Congress should (1) remove Pelosi from her leadership position, picking a new speaker who would be in line for the presidency if Bush/Cheney are impeached; (2) impeach Bush/Cheney/Pelosi/Harmon all in one consolidated proceeding; (3) repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, not only restoring habeas corpus but eliminating the immunity from war crimes prosecutions retroactive to 9/11/01, and (4) turn all four over to the Justice Department for possible war crimes prosecution.

Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, and others need to be the subjects of criminal investigations as accessories to torture.

So, types of torture to which a prisoner might be subjected had to be kept secret from potential captives?  That’s interesting because the argument for torture was that it would deter anybody contemplating terrorist acts - get caught and you get tortured deterrent.

The other argument that torture was an effective means of getting viable information from a captive was condemned by professional counter-intelligence agents years ago.

Let’s face it.  Not only are our august leaders in one case uninformed, in the other they’re shown to be pathological liars. So what’s left?  Sadists anyone.

2/3’s of the Dems in congress are part of the big-money oligrachy that runs the gov. They just accept that they need the big-money types in order to keep their jobs, therefore, BUSINESS AS USUAL. Although I am a life-long FDR/Kucinich Dem, I will vote Ron Paul as my protest vote. The only way to fix the corrupt US gov. is to dismantle it, so the big-money has to try to control 50-state govs. instead of one Fed. gov. It’s a lost cause, bc I know there will never be a super-majority in congress willing to take back the gov. from big-money. As usual, the lesser of the evils.

Holy crap, lets get a grip.  Is anyone here really surprised by this non-revelation?  Come on now, these sorry excuses, who call themselves democratic “representatives” are walking, talking pieces of excrement.  They have long (and I mean Loooong) shown their neo-libricon proclivities.  There are no surprises here!  As time goes by more and more will be revealed showing their duplicity.  We have been bought and sold down the polluted mainstream of American politics.

FOR THOMAS BILLIS........HOW DOES A REPUBLICAN GET A JOB COMPARING DEMOCRATS AND KNATS BALLS ???I FORGOT, THE AIRPORT STALLS. RIGHT??

I disagree with the two previous commenters.What piece of evidence in the way the democrats have caved into every executive demand would lead you to believe that they would stand up to the executive on anything.I have an idea.Let’s waterboard the democratic leadership and ask them.This will accomplish two things 1]they will know whether waterboarding is torture or not 2]we will have signed confessions for every unsolved crime in the twentieth century.Defending democrats when there is overwhelming evidence that they have the balls of gnats is not the way to win our country back.We must stay on their asses and force them in spite of themselves to do the right thing.Nancy Pelosi’s silence on this issue says volumes.

re: #119130 by peedeecee on 12/09 at 4:05 pm:

I agree: the Washington Post, given its pro-war track record, has NO right to expect us to believe any report of theirs, citing anonymous sources, that is suspiciously useful for protecting the Bush administration’s putrid posterior.

Why would anyone believe this story? Who are the “officials” who are being cited? What evidence is there that this story is factual? That the “officials” don’t have an agenda?

Sorry, WP - you have to do better than that before I’ll buy this.