torture
Posted by Neeraja on 01-11-2008 in Waterboarding - Torture?Waterboarding initially was used during the Spanish Inquisition as a form of torture... so it is kind of ridiculous that the same tactics are being used by the present day CIA with extrajudicial prisoners.Moreover, the fact that the CIA attempts to hide the fact that they use this technique (with Khalid Mohammed post the al Qaeda's 2001 attacks for instance) shows that if they felt like they were not doing something wrong, they wouldnt be attempting to hide their actions.. Even in a semi-recent poll done by CNN, when asked if waterboarding should be considered as torture, more than 2/3 agreed that it was. It's too bad that despite these more than blatant signs, it is still not fully outlawed.
In response to: Waterboarding IS torture
For awhile now, the Bush Administration is trying to legalize torture. They're starting out by getting people to say that waterboarding is not torture. Now, if you go look at the history of waterboarding, you can see that it has been used by just about every tyrant, including Hitler. If you actually do your research, you will come to the conclusion that waterboarding is torture. Not physical torture, but psychological. People can die from it if it is overused, because they suffocate. It creates the sensation of drowning, and it terrifies the person it's being used on to the point where they actually think they're dying. It has been shown to possibly cause long-term mental health problems, too. What I find really disturbing about this is that it's actually being debated. How can this kind of stuff be debated on national television, and not seem suspicious? All of a sudden it's "okay" to torture people, because they are SUSPECTED terrorists? This country is heading towards fascism.