President Obama: Weakening or Strengthening?

According to “Science – How stuff Works”, “Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person’s arms and legs so he can’t move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person’s face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person’s mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person’s mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.”

This may seem harsh to some, and completely against the UN’s no torture views. But lets take a moment to realize what our enemies over seas, and even some here at home will do to our soldiers and military officials if they are taken as hostages of the Al’Qaeda or any other of the various terrorist groups we are fighting while the war in Iraq continues. They perform extreme torture methods such as: Blowtorch to the skin, Eye removal, drill to the hands of the victim, dragging of victims behind cars dislocating joins and breaking bones, suspension from ceilings and electrocuted, breaking of limbs and restriction of breathing, and many more. Water boarding pales in comparison to these merciless and frankly heartless techniques of forcefully withdrawing information from someone. 

When these things are being performed on our troops, and any victims that are unlucky enough to be put into Al’Qaeda’s care water-boarding seems tame. I believe we need this tactic, to extract necessary information from our captives, and that taking away this right, as president Obama has done is frankly ridiculous and quite dangerous. When facing people that would have willingly given their lives for their cause, I believe calm interrogation techniques will be extremely ineffective.