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January 24, 2006

When is terrorism okay?

Recent allegations that the Bush administration is and has been deliberately using torture got me to thinking... Specifically, about the interrogation technique known as water boarding.

There are several different techniques that fall under the water boarding description. What they all have in common is that the subject is bound and either immersed in water or a cloth is draped over their face and water is dripping into their nose until they think they are about to drown. It's described as "the illusion of drowning". But in fact, if the interrogaters didn't stop then the subject would drown.

As described in this Chicago Tribune piece from about three weeks ago, water boarding "induces terror and a reaction of the autonomic nervous system that cannot be controlled."

What is "terrorism" if not the deliberate inducement of terror with the goal of forcing the subject to change his/her mind about something?

I only have one real phobia, and that is of drowning. It stems from a couple incidents when I was a young child.

The first one was when I was about 6 years old and a group of older boys decided that they were going to teach me to swim the hard way. They shoved me off the dock at a lake into about 6 - 7 foot deep water. I still remember the incident vividly. My dad was nearby and rescued me, but not before I'd breathed in some water and had the bejesus scared out of me. The reality is that I wasn't actually in danger of drowning. But, that was no consolation at the time nor did it prevent me from developing a phobia of water that's too deep for me to be able to stand on the bottom and still have my head out of the water.

Of all the many ways in which a person can die, the only one that really freaks me out is drowning. I'd rather die any other way than that. Seriously!

The second time I actually was at risk of drowning. But, the psychological damage had already been done from the first incident.

Quoteing someone else's quote of New Yorker writer Jane Mayer,

According to the [New York] Times, a secret memo issued by Administration lawyers authorized the C.I.A. to use novel interrogation methods—including "water-boarding," in which a suspect is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns. Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation, and 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.

When is terrorism okay?

Is it okay as long as president Bush asserts the right to do it even though Congress has passed laws forbidding it? SCOTUS nominee Judge Alito's oft-referenced Unitary Executive Theory clearly would allow that.

Posted by Kevin at January 24, 2006 10:53 AM