Waterboarding got a mention in the recent Republican presidential debates, though you may have missed it between Rick Perry forgetting what day of the week it was and Herman Cain saying nothing of substance whatsoever.
In short, at least two of the GOP candidates announced they support waterboarding: U.S. congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Cain. The latter sinisterly calls it an “advanced interrogation technique.”
President Barack Obama has a slightly different view of the practice, which involves water being poured over the face of an immobilized captive, thus causing said individual to experience the sensation of drowning. Over the weekend, he told journalists:
“They’re wrong. Waterboarding is torture. Anybody who has actually read about and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that that is torture. And that’s not something we do – period.”
Yep. To their credit, congressman Ron Paul and former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman both opposed waterboarding as torture in the presidential debate. United States forces have used the method before on some foreign terrorism suspects, though this was under former President George W. Bush. When the Obama administration arrived, waterboarding disappeared.
Of course, if Cain and Bachmann are confident about waterboarding not being torture, they’re always welcome to try it out themselves. I mean, at least one pro-waterboarding radio host tried it in 2009 and found it … er, oh yeah, tortuous .
