waterboarding is torture simple at that may be not as extreme as some things done in other countries but USA is "supposed" to be a civilised country.

A boss that actually covers his employees' a*ses!!! At the end of the day, if anyone carries the can, it looks like Hayden has at least got the cajones to stand up.

"Hey guys, thanks for what you did, you got the job done like the Prez asked us to. So I'm just gonna erase this tape of you guys letting that goat get its own back on that jihadi...."

Of course, if the position had been reversed, and it had been the CIA guys captured by AQ, I'm sure the jihadis would have just given them a cup of tea and made a few polite enquiries. No chance of a little mutilation followed calls to the victim's family on the victim's mobile to gloat and threaten them, followed by a video-taped beheading. No siree, no chance!

I'll have the coat with the legend "Yes, I will defend your right to label me a sarcastic g*t!"....

"These so-called ill-treatments and torturing........ stories of which were spread everywhere amongst the people, and particularly by detainees who were liberated by the occupying armies, were not, as assumed, inflicted methodically, but by individual leaders, sub-leaders, and men who laid violent hands on them . . . If in any way such a matter was brought to my notice, the perpetrator was, of course, immediately relieved of his post or transferred somewhere else. So that, even if he wasn't punished because there wasn't evidence to prove his guilt, he was taken away and given another position . . ."

who said this? Albert Gonzales? General Petraeus? Cheney, or Wolfowitz, or Rumsfeld, or even Dubya?

nope - it was Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, in his deposition to the Nuremberg Tribunal.

"Waterboarding is torture. It causes severe physical suffering in the form of reflexive choking, gagging, and the feeling of suffocation. It may cause severe pain in some cases. If uninterrupted, waterboarding will cause death by suffocation. It is also foreseeable that waterboarding, by producing an experience of drowning, will cause severe mental pain and suffering. The technique is a form of mock execution by suffocation with water. The process incapacitates the victim from drawing breath, and causes panic, distress, and terror of imminent death. Many victims of waterboarding suffer prolonged mental harm for years and even decades afterward."

From here: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/04/06/usdom13130.htm

So how long until G. W. Bush is indicted for war crimes?

Waterboarding is not some sort of slight inconvenience - it is controlled and prolonged drowning. Water is poured into your lungs in a perfectly civilised pace, the "interviewee" is given the opportunity to decide whether they want to speak or drown, more water is sent into the lungs, uncontrollable shakes happen as the interviewee's body reacts to the threat to its existance, more water is poared into their lungs, repeat until either the interviewee gives up, dies or the interviewers diecide to do something else.

All the time, of course, the interviewee is restrained to stop them moving and all they can really do is twitch against the restraints and experience the pain - would you like to undertake this?

Somebody dies in custody. Destroy the tapes. Problem solved.

I bet the CIA check the reg every friday for insight on how to go about covering up such monumental cockups.

In fact, I bet there`s a whole host of terrorists trapped in lifts around Langley.

the law that says don't get caught?

while it's bad pr for people to know that this is happening it would probably be much worse if people could see how horrific it is.

Gosh.... Its been a while since the CIA got caught torturing people. At least a week. For those with short memories, back in August 2006, the Judge Advocates General for each branch of the US military (that is to say Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines) all testified that waterboarding was a violation of both US internal law and the Geneva conventions. Its notable that the 2006 Army Field Manual issued last year explicitly banned its use, partly to prevent Army people being caught acting as front-men for CIA torturers.

Daniel Levin, a Justice Department Republican stooge voluntarily tested waterboarding in 2004. Despite his extreme-right wng positions on most things Levin drafted a legal opinion that waterboarding was torture. Levin was soon fired.

What I find fascinating is that, back in the days of the Tokyo War Crimes trials "waterboarding" was worthy of a long prison sentence (15+ years hard labour) at the least. The people that tortured Lt Chase Nielsen (via waterboarding) in 1942 were sentenced to long terms in jail. Of course back then Nielsen was defined by the Japanese government as a terrorist.

Being fair, in these days of Blairite morality its vaguely concerning that we should expect better behaviour from the Imperial Japanese military, the people that brought us the rape on Nanking, than from our own security services today. After all, if its a crime for them they must have been expected to behave better; whilst our own guys must be less moral. To put it another way no one complains if a dog pees on a lamppost in public, but if you do the same...

Still its nice to remember back when we might have argued that we were the good guys. Bin Laden, who has long argued that the West actually has no interest in human rights, and merely uses them as a thing to pretend to be superior to Muslims with, must be laughing his nuts off. If we take Bin Laden's November 2002 missive "letter to the American people":

"As for the war criminals which you censure and form criminal courts for - you shamelessly ask that your own are granted immunity!! However, history will not forget the war crimes that you committed against the Muslims and the rest of the world; those you have killed in Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq will remain a shame that you will never be able to escape..."

"You have claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights, and your Ministry of Foreign affairs issues annual reports containing statistics of those countries that violate any Human Rights. However, all these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse. In America, you captured thousands the Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason, court trial, nor even disclosing their names. You issued newer, harsher laws."

"What happens in Guatanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces - you hypocrites, "What is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?" "

The really depressing thing is that Bin Laden has a point. Maybe its too much to hope that we might start in trying to beat him by not doing what he's predicted we'd do all along.

These are not people who took part in the 11th of September attacks. In fact these are people who are suspected of fighting against the US for what they see as freedom for their country and religion (I'm not saying I agree with their point of view).

As they are suspects it seems some of them were innocent of any crime and didn't even raise their voices against the US.

So, the US is guilty of torturing innocent people along with one or two who may have been guilty of something. Either way they were tortured.

So, why aren't we cutting of diplomatic relations with the US and imposing trade sanctions?

I'm detecting double standards here.

The comparision towards nazi-germany may be more "on spot" than you imagine.

In pre-war germany, the parliment was burned. This was the excuse for forming the feared "Gestapo", and it was blamed on communist sympatisers.

In 2001, World trade center fell down, in circumstances that have been called (mildly) suspect. This gave George W. Bush the excuse to turn FEMA into DHS, which now is more concerned with abusing power, than actual security.

In pre-war Germany, the Gestapo, and the excuse of "communist sympatisers" led to laws removing every civil right.

In post-9/11 USA the fall of the world trade center has led to civilised laws like patriot act (1 and 2), and given the amount of laws already there, pretty much removed every civil rights US people ever had.

Why is this my business? Because just like the pre wwii Germans, Americans seems to think that their law applies worldwide, and has added the kidnapping-policy to enforce it.

Since the american people has done NOTHING to A) get GWB removed, B) get GWB on trial for his crimes against humanity. Actually you have done worse: You re-elected him. I'd say Americans are just as guilty as the Nazis were. And I consider that they should be treated the same.

Good riddance.

//Svein

Breathe out as hard and far and long as you can for a minute before they start, if you can judge it. Then being restrained with a mouth full of water you will have to breathe it all in within about 30 seconds due to reflex.

Either they see you are trying to commit suicide and stop, or they don't in which case you will be dead or unconscious in short order. Either way, your problem is solved.

That's the theory. Could it work in practice?