The CIA reportedly used the waterboarding interrogation technique, which effectively drowns its victim, as many as 266 times on two suspected al-Qaida terrorists, according to The Guardian.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the suspects, and “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks,” according to the 9/11 Commission Report, was subjected to waterboarding 183 times.
But what is waterboarding?
The definition of waterboarding, used as an interrogation technique for suspected terrorists, is that it consists of laying a person on his back on a board, with his head angled downward. Water is then poured over the person’s face, entering breathing passages. This creates forced suffocation and a sense of drowning for the person.
After being asked to undergo the technique, Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine, and, up until his published article, supporter of waterboarding as an interrogation method, underwent a waterboarding himself, reporting on his experience afterward.
“You may have ready by now the official lie about this treatment [waterboarding], which is that it ‘stimulates’ the feeling of drowning,” Hitchens said. “This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning – or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The ‘board’ is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered.”
President Obama released Bush administration memos on waterboarding, which Obama’s administration has deemed as torture, on April 16th.
“While I believe strongly in transparency and accountability, I also believe that in a dangerous world, the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protest information that is classified for purposes of national security,” Obama said, according to The Huffington Post. “. . . However, after consulting with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and others, I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and required their release.”
According to The New York Times, the memos’ releases will limit the CIA’s ability to pursue terrorists in the future, said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was CIA Director the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency.
Hayden told Fox News Sunday that the release of the memos give al-Qaida an advantage, because now they can prepare for CIA techniques, even if they’re no longer being practiced.
“It describes the box within which Americans will not go beyond,” Hayden said. “To me, that’s very useful for our enemies, even if, as a policy matter, this president at this time had decided not to use one, any, or all of those techniques.”
The U.S. now acknowledges waterboarding as torture, but Deroy Murdock from The National Review feels otherwise.
“Though clearly uncomfortable, waterboarding loosens lips without causing permanent physical injured (and unlikely, even temporary ones),” Murdock said.
Our Take:
It is important for students to know what their country’s government does, particularly with such a controversial issue as waterboarding. It is an inhumane method of interrogation and the U.S. now recognizes this. Of course, it is unknown whether the release of the memos will provide any help to al-Qaida, but if President Obama and his officials feel it was the best course of action, then the decision was probably made with much thought and discussion.
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