What is waterboarding?

Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person’s arms and legs so he can’t move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person’s face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person’s mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person’s mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.[14]

CIA officers who subject themselves to the technique last an average of 14 seconds before caving in.[15]

Waterboarding is a form of torture and it can cause physical as well as lasting psychological injury.

Poorly executed waterboarding can cause extreme pain and damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, and sometimes broken bones because of the restraints applied to the struggling victim. The psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends. Prolonged waterboarding can also cause death. [16]

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated “a number of people” who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, “[He] argued that it was indeed torture. ‘Some victims were still traumatized years later’, he said. One patient couldn’t take showers, and panicked when it rained. ‘The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,’ he said.”[17]

Unfortunately, the president’s nominee to be our Attorney General, Mike Mukasey, is unsure whether or not waterboarding is torture. Watch Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI) question him on the topic.

Prior to making this response, Mukasey was sailing to an easy nomination. Sen. Schumer had recommended Mukasey to the Bush administration and Judiciary Chairman Leahy had said that he liked Mukasey personally. But the Democrats feel compelled to block his nomination if he cannot say for the record that waterboarding is torture and is, therefore, unconstitutional.

Leahy has refused to set a date for a vote on Mukasey’s nomination until he clarifies his answer to that question.

Separately, a Democrat familiar with the panel’s deliberations said Mukasey may not get the 10 committee votes his nomination needs to be reported to the Senate floor with a favorable recommendation unless he says, in effect, that waterboarding is torture.

Atrios has been pointing this out the last couple of days, but if Mukasey agrees that waterboarding is torture then he is kind of obligated to do something about it. Those that have authorized and carried out acts of torture are criminals…the worst and most contemptible kinds of criminals. And once you open up that Pandora’s box there is no telling where it ends. Look at Donald Rumsfeld’s travails in France.

A group of U.S. and European human rights organizations is pursuing a legal complaint against Donald Rumsfeld in a Paris court that accuses the former defense secretary of being responsible for torture.

The group, which includes the International Federation for Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and the Nork York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, filed the complaint late Thursday and unsuccessfully sought to confront Rumsfeld as he left a breakfast meeting in central Paris on Friday.

Jeanne Sulzer, a lawyer for the group, said the complaint was filed with a state prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, who has the power to pursue the case because of Rumsfeld’s presence in France…

…the group is seeking to press charges against Rumsfeld for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq under the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which France has used in previous torture cases…

…Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement that the aim of the latest legal complaint was to demonstrate “that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice.”

Of course, this brings up another aspect to the problem. The reason that human rights activists can potentially compel France to arrest Rumsfeld is twofold. First, two conditions must be met. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, so Rumsfeld’s case cannot be taken there. But they must still show that that Rumsfeld’s home country is doing nothing to address the issue.

If Mukasey admits that waterboarding is torture and he knows that people like George Tenet authorized waterboarding, then he must do something about it or Tenet will be subject to arrest anytime he travels abroad. And, of course, Tenet had his orders.

It kind of sucks that our government is being run by criminals. No?