Waterboarding Americans? Now That’s Torture

By Eric on January 14, 2008

First of all, a hello and Happy New Year to everyone! I’m back from my trip to Israel. Pictures will be along shortly.

Now, let’s talk about waterboarding. It’s a very controversial issue these days. Some people say it’s torture. Some people say it’s not torture. Still others won’t even bother to answer the question. That’s why, no matter how many times we watched waterboarding in action, nobody could definitively say where it fell on the spectrum of legality in the United States.

Until now.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has cleared up the question of whether waterboarding is torture once and for all. His answer… well, see for yourself.

U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said in a magazine interview that waterboarding would be torture if it was used against him personally, but stopped short of condemning the controversial interrogation technique.

Wait, what? There’s no possible way that last sentence could be right… is there?

McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, was quoted in the New Yorker edition released on Sunday as defining torture as “something that would cause excruciating pain.”

Asked if waterboarding — the practice of covering a person’s face with a cloth and then dripping water on it to bring on a feeling of drowning — fit that definition, McConnell said that for him personally, it would.

“If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful!” McConnell said in the article. “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.”

But he rejected a suggestion that he personally condemned the practice.

Wow. So, if somebody strapped you down and tried to convince you you were drowning, that would be torture. But do it to someone else… and you can’t say? Only the twisted mind of a true Bushite could justify this unique kind of hypocrisy.

Thanks for clearing up those sticky legal questions, Mike. Anyone waterboarding Americans: torture. Americans waterboarding anyone else: not torture.

Hey, world! This could be you!

Tags: hypocrisy, Mike McConnell, torture, waterboarding

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Comments

There are 5 responses to “Waterboarding Americans? Now That’s Torture”

1. Make peace, not war!

   —undeveephenna on January 14, 2008 at 7:39 pm

2. [...] course, Mukasey’s answer is hardly original. You might recall Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell’s comments a few weeks ago: “If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how [...]

   —crazydrumguy | readblog | » Mukasey: Waterboarding Me Would be Torture on January 30, 2008 at 11:50 am

3. [...] course, Mukasey’s answer is hardly original. You might recall Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell’s comments a few weeks ago: “If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how [...]

   —Student Life on January 30, 2008 at 11:51 am

4. [...] now it’s no secret that the American people just can’t get a straight answer from the Bush Administration on whether or not waterboarding is torture, but the answer we do get [...]

   —crazydrumguy | readblog | » Kristol: “Ambivalent on Torture” on February 13, 2008 at 11:51 am

5. [...] have made some pretty ridiculous comments about waterboarding. Attorney General Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence McConnell have both said that waterboarding would be torture if it were done to them. Mukasey also [...]

   —crazydrumguy | readblog | » Someone Tell Huckabee that Torture Isn’t Funny on February 17, 2008 at 10:31 am