Letters to the Editor
-
American Water Torture
The Gestapo called that particular "enhanced interrogation technique" (as they termed it, and, fittingly, as the US has), "the Bath." It involved holding someone underwater until they drown, then using CPR to revive them.
So, it's not just the WWII Japanese we're emulating with waterboarding; it's the Gestapo, too. We're in excellent moral company.
And once American prisoners at some future point are subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques," we'll have no moral credibility to oppose them or complain about them -- all the torturers will have to say is "Well, you do it."
This is why America's Clinton- and Bush-era opposition to the World Court for War Crimes was so short-sighted and paved the way for the expansion of criminality under the Bush regime; it wasn't recognized then by the majority, but this paved the way for what we're dealing with, now.
Now, why Charles Schumer and Diane Feinstein don't get that is anybody's guess. It's in our national interest to oppose torture, and not to practice or condone it -- that this even has to be explained is frightening, shows how low we've sunk.