Be accurate on waterboarding
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Re “Evidence on terror suspect barred,” July 22
Please stop referring to waterboarding as “the sensation of drowning” and characterizing it as “tantamount to torture.” Waterboarding is drowning that is halted before death. There is nothing simulated about it.
It would be more accurate to call it “forced partial drowning.” Historically, waterboarding has always been seen as torture. The United States successfully prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime following World War II, and it court-martialed U.S. soldiers for using the “water cure” during the occupation of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War.
The claim that waterboarding is not torture, or even that it is “tantamount” to torture, is a position taken by people who want to be able to do it. It is irresponsible for journalists to parrot this counter-factual, ahistorical position on waterboarding as objective fact.
Brian E. Sims
Walnut Creek
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