Waterboarding

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent.[2] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[3] Although waterboarding can be performed in ways that leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.[4] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[5]

In 1901, Major Edwin Glenn was court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years hard labour for waterboarding an insurgent in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. In 1947, Yukio Asano - a Japanese officer - was charged with war crimes and received 15 years hard labour for waterboarding a US civilian. It was declared illegal by US generals in Vietnam and a US soldier was court-martialed after The Washington Post (21.1.1968) published a front page photograph of him supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier.

Controversy

Opponents of the U.S. policy call it "torture" and want official definitions of torture changed so as to outlaw the technique. According to Chapter 18, section 2340 of the United States Legal Code, torture is defined as "an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment classifies torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."