Waterboarding

Waterboarding is a method of interrogation that dates back to the time of the Italian Inquisition in the 1500s. A tightly bound prisoner has porous cloth placed over his mouth and nose. Water is poured over his face in such a manner as to convince the prisoner that he is drowning. Anonymous sources claim the practice was revived in the wake of 9/11 which then quickly attracted harsh criticism.

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."