"Waterboarding" vs "Simulated Drowning".....

[HardWorkingDem]

Here we go again. What is it that liberals and Dems just don't get about winning arguments with words and images created in one's mind by words?

Here is a perfect example of it again. One republican pundit is claiming a high number of Americans would probably be all right with "waterboarding." Which is probably true, simply because of the damn image one gets when thinking of something called "waterboarding."

When hearing the word "waterboarding," most people probably picture in their mind some evil terrorist strapped to a surfboard while some blue blood all American boy is dripping water on the man's face from a cup with a hole in it.

Liberals and Dems should be screaming "simulated drowning" and it pisses me off that they don't. Drowning is one of the most feared ways of people to die and liberals and Dems should describe this terrible act in a way that truly describes what it is - "simulated drowning!"

[Fovea]

1. I think I like the term

Partial drowning torture.

And we should pass a law agin it.

[CottonBear]

2. Water boarding IS simulated drowning which makes one believe that drowning is imminent.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Waterboarding-Definition-Wikipedia24dec05.htm&h=599&w=450&sz=87&tbnid=hUjiqFci86vAaM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwaterboarding,%2Bpictures%26um%3D1&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3

http://www.pbase.com/srogouski/waterboarding

Using medieval torture techniques on political prisoners is immoral. :(

[HardWorkingDem]

4. That is my point....

but the term "waterboarding" is too sterile and I think brings up a mental picture of some harmless dripping of water on someone's face to just irritate them. People need to think of it for what it is: simulating you are trying to drown someone to kill them.

[CottonBear]

7. See my post #6 for actual pictures of a Khymer Rouge waterboard.

I totallly agree with you that the majority of people do not know that waterboarding is extreme physical and mental torture. :(

The chickenhawks who say it isn't torture should all have to be waterboarded just like sheriffs deputies get tasered so they'll know what it feels like. I'm just saying...

[monktonman]

3. so true about words

When I first heard about waterboarding I thought it was something like
Chinese water torture.Drip, drip on your head.
Funny thing too cause I heard it on the radio while I was camping.
My tent had a hole in it and it rained for three days. I was thinking to
myself that these terrorists must be pussies if they cant take a little
water dripping on their forheads. I've been doing it for three days.
Wow was I wrong. Drowning really is one of the most feared ways of people to die.
That and being locked in a dark room with Ann Coulter.

[CottonBear]

6. Read "This is what waterboarding Looks Like" by David Corn:

snip...

His photos show one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge. Here's the first:


Here's another view:


How were they used? Here's a painting by a former prisoner that shows the waterboard in action:


In an email to me, Blank explained the significance of the photos. He wrote:

The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods. Incidentally, the waterboard in these photo wasn't merely one among many torture devices highlighted at the prison museum. It was one of only two devices singled out for highlighting (the other was another form of water-torture--a tank that could be filled with water or other liquids; I have photos of that too.) There was an outdoor device as well, one the Khymer Rouge didn't have to construct: chin-up bars. (The prison where the museum is located had been a school before the Khymer Rouge took over). These bars were used for "stress positions"-- another practice employed under current US guidelines. At the Khymer Rouge prison, there is a tank of water next to the bars. It was used to revive prisoners for more torture when they passed out after being placed in stress positions.

The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn't a coincidence. As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Bottom line: Not only do waterboarding and the other types of torture currently being debated put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half-century; they're also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn't a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it's sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.

These photos are important because most of us have never seen an actual, real-life waterboard. The press typically describes it in the most anodyne ways: a device meant to "simulate drowning" or to "make the prisoner believe he might drown." But the Khymer Rouge were no jokesters, and they didn't tailor their abuse to the dictates of the Geneva Convention. They-- like so many brutal regimes--made waterboarding one of their primary tools for a simple reason: it is one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised.

more...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-corn/this-is-what-waterboardin_b_30480.html

[baldguy]

5. Like saying someone's "almost pregnant"

Torture is Torture is Torture - no matter how much they try to pretty up the language it still stinks.

[backscatter712]

8. People don't understand what waterboarding is.

They think it's some sort of juvenile prank, like getting a swirly.

No. You get strapped to that inclined table, the cloth is put over your face and in your mouth, and the water starts pouring. At first, it seems not so bad, but then that water starts flowing in your nose and in your mouth, and you can't breath. It hits the back of your throat, and you start gagging. Reflexively, you try to spit it out, but you can't spit it out because of the cloth, meanwhile you can't breathe, you enter a drowning panic, and you thrash against your restraints so hard you break your own bones. Eventually you pass out, your lungs spasming in a final attempt to breathe, but before you know it, the cloth's off, your tormenters are literally pounding you in the gut to force you to breathe again, and you're back in the world of the living, only to begin the drowning process again, and again, and again.

In the Geneva Convention, waterboarding counts as both torture and mock execution. Several Japanese officers were hanged for torturing POWs, yes, with waterboarding. If you ask me, anyone who participates in a waterboarding, on the giving end, should be fucking curbstomped. MOUTH ON THE CURB!!!

[hedgehog]

9. Bad enough for the Republicans who go along with this, but why aren't

we screaming about Democrats who say it might be necessary in some circumstances. NO TORTURE! Period. End of story! Sayin gone thing in public and another behind closed doors doesn't count!



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/09/26/2007-09-26_hillary_flipflops_contradicts_bill___her.html

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10212006/postopinion/editorials/hillarys_torture_exception_editorials_.htm