2008 Woodie Awards
Point Counterpoint: Is waterboarding an acceptable interrogation method?
Zack Schools and Matt Monroe
Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Opinion
Zack Schools
Waterboarding is unacceptable as an interrogation method
Imagine being strapped to a board, inclined backwards and having buckets of water repeatedly poured over your mouth and nose. Sounds pleasant, right?
Those who suffered through "waterboarding" will tell you it feels horrible. You can't move or breath and it strains your brain and pushes your body to its limits. Proponents of this torturous act will tell you that it is actually not torture, on the grounds that it's only simulated drowning and the human body is not permanently harmed during the process.
This is not the case, however. It is common knowledge that your brain can trick your body and the rest of your senses into thinking you are drowning. It can be just as detrimental to your psyche as actually drowning.
It is a widely accepted fact that the U.S. does not "torture." We, along with the rest of the world, are bound by the Geneva Convention when we are dealing with prisoners of war and the Geneva Convention demands that no prisoners of war shall suffer "cruel and unusual punishment."
The international community, as well as the majority of Congress, whole-heartedly believes that waterboarding is a form of torture. Yet George W. Bush, on multiple occasions (three times so far), has vetoed any bill banning waterboarding and similar types of torture. Bush uses the grounds that by banning waterboarding we would be "removing one of the CIA's crucial forms of interrogation" and "one of our most important tools in the War on Terror."
Congress, on three occasions, passed bills that would ban water-boarding, among other forms of torture, and restrict the CIA to the 13 methods of interrogation in the Army field manual.
I happen to believe that this argument is open-and-shut. Waterboarding was developed during the Spanish inquisition and was then adapted later by the Nazis, the Viet-Cong, the Khemer Rouge and possibly even North Korea. If these factions, arguably the most horrible in history, used water-boarding, what does that say about how humane this 'interrogation' really is?
Waterboarding is unacceptable as an interrogation method
Imagine being strapped to a board, inclined backwards and having buckets of water repeatedly poured over your mouth and nose. Sounds pleasant, right?
Those who suffered through "waterboarding" will tell you it feels horrible. You can't move or breath and it strains your brain and pushes your body to its limits. Proponents of this torturous act will tell you that it is actually not torture, on the grounds that it's only simulated drowning and the human body is not permanently harmed during the process.
This is not the case, however. It is common knowledge that your brain can trick your body and the rest of your senses into thinking you are drowning. It can be just as detrimental to your psyche as actually drowning.
It is a widely accepted fact that the U.S. does not "torture." We, along with the rest of the world, are bound by the Geneva Convention when we are dealing with prisoners of war and the Geneva Convention demands that no prisoners of war shall suffer "cruel and unusual punishment."
The international community, as well as the majority of Congress, whole-heartedly believes that waterboarding is a form of torture. Yet George W. Bush, on multiple occasions (three times so far), has vetoed any bill banning waterboarding and similar types of torture. Bush uses the grounds that by banning waterboarding we would be "removing one of the CIA's crucial forms of interrogation" and "one of our most important tools in the War on Terror."
Congress, on three occasions, passed bills that would ban water-boarding, among other forms of torture, and restrict the CIA to the 13 methods of interrogation in the Army field manual.
I happen to believe that this argument is open-and-shut. Waterboarding was developed during the Spanish inquisition and was then adapted later by the Nazis, the Viet-Cong, the Khemer Rouge and possibly even North Korea. If these factions, arguably the most horrible in history, used water-boarding, what does that say about how humane this 'interrogation' really is?
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