i am so disgusted with this country right now.

here is what waterboarding looks like. there are pictures at the link from phnom penh. this is not "torture lite". this is not just being firm with people or inconveniencing them.

this is one of the two best techniques the khmer rouge had. this is one of the two singled out in a prison museum there, as being the best for getting people to say whatever you wanted them to say. not the truth, mind you. but whatever you wanted them to say. the locations of bombs that don't exist. that their own mother had sold out to the enemy. *anything* to get it to stop.

if you can't get it into your head that this is immoral, inhumane, and evil, read that last bit again. it's not even *useful*. it does not produce useful intelligence. people will say *anything* to get it to stop.

David Corn: This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

Bottom line: Not only do waterboarding and the other types of torture currently being debated put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half-century; they're also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn't a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it's sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.

These photos are important because most of us have never seen an actual, real-life waterboard. The press typically describes it in the most anodyne ways: a device meant to 'simulate drowning' or to 'make the prisoner believe he might drown.' But the Khymer Rouge were no jokesters, and they didn't tailor their abuse to the dictates of the Geneva Convention. They-- like so many brutal regimes--made waterboarding one of their primary tools for a simple reason: it is one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised.

The legislation backed by Bush and congressional Republicans would explicitly permit the use of evidence obtained through waterboarding and other forms of torture. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other top al Qaeda leaders have reportedly been subjected to this technique. They would certainly note--or try to note--that at any trial. But with this legislation, the White House is seeking to declare the use of waterboarding (at least in the past) as a legitimate practice of the US government.