Waterboarding And Inquisition

“The patient was placed on an escalera or potro - a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder. It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat kept it immovable. A bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a toca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from a jarra or jar, holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient gasped and felt he was suffocating, and at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight.”

The Spanish Inquisition, unlike many American lawmakers and members of the executive branch, did not waffle about labeling waterboarding a torture. Waterboarding was not invented in Spain: Since the middle of the 13th Century it had been used by European civil and ecclesiastical courts, particularly the Papal Inquisition, in Rome. In Spain no one voiced doubts, as did Michael Mukasey during his October confirmation hearings for U.S. attorney general, and at a hearing just the other day, about whether waterboarding might not technically be torture.

President Bush, on the other hand, has no doubts at all. Unlike his nominee, he spoke with inquisitor-like certainty when he proclaimed that our physically coercive techniques “are safe, they are lawful and they are necessary.” He apparently sees no contradiction in simultaneously insisting that these “classified interrogation procedures” be conducted offshore so as to remove them from the jurisdiction and safeguards of the American judicial system.

Read the rest here: link

Note: link