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Water-boarding
and other forms of torture
are
immoral, illegal, and do not work.
For
those who don’t think waterboarding is torture, ask Japanese officer
Yukio Asano. In 1947, he was tried as a war criminal and sentenced to 15
years of hard labor for waterboarding American prisoners during World
War II.A number of other Japanese prison guards were also convicted of war crimes for waterboarding.
Waterboarding was a favorite technique during the Spanish Inquisition and used by the Nazis - so the White House is in great company.
For those who don’t know what waterboarding is, it is when a person has his or her head inclined downward with water poured over the face and breathing passages. This elicits the gag reflex and the victim experiences the feeling of drowning and imminent death.
Waterboarding usually leaves no lasting physical damage, but there is the danger of lung and brain damage and broken bones due to struggling against restraints. Death can also result. The psychological trauma from waterboarding can last for years.
Douglas’ warning about the twilight that leads to darkness is now, and yet those defending our Constitution and human rights are accused of aiding the enemy.
“We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights,” warned Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
In a letter signed by 11 senior CIA officials to the Senate, they stated, “Our nation was created in response to the abuses visited on our ancestors by the King of England, who claimed the right to enter their homes, to levy taxes at whim, and to jail those perceived as a threat without allowing them to be confronted by their accusers. Now, 230 years later, we find our own President claiming the right to put people in detention centers without legal recourse and to employ interrogation methods that, by any reasonable legal standard, are categorized as torture.
“We ask that the Senate lead the way in upholding the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and affirmed in the Geneva Conventions regarding the rights of individuals and the obligations of governing authorities towards those in their power. We believe it is important to combat the hatred and vitriol espoused by Islamic extremists, but not at the expense of being viewed as a nation who justifies or excuses torture and incarceration without recourse to a judicial procedure.”
Those who deny civil liberties and human rights to even supposed enemies are not patriots - “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.” - Thomas Paine.
Dan Ehl writes for Daily Iowegian in Centerville, Iowa.
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