What is waterboarding?

Question

I only just heard the expression and I think its some kind of torture that America uses to extract confessions from detainees but I don't what's involved. It sounds like some weasle words to me like calling burning matches under the fingernails an interrogative manicure.

Answer 1

water boarding is a kind of torture

Answer 2

Its not body boarding

Its not surfing the web

Its not snow boarding nor chocolate hoarding,

Its not breathing the life air

but going down and down and down  

like captain Pugwash

sinking

choking

drowning

floating

but not to heaven.

Answer 3

It's torture.

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1][2] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.[3] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[4] Although waterboarding does not always cause 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.[5] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[6]

Answer 4

an effective method of extracting information from non-compliant people!

Answer 5

I watched the YouTube clip (above) where one of my favorite authors voluntarily subjects himself to this torture and it lasts about 10 seconds before he has them stop.  Just awful.  Makes me ashamed to be part of the human race.

"Freedom Bath" -- I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic.

Answer 6

Here is someone (a brilliant journalist and author) being waterboarded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv...

Answer 7

Your close.

It is said to be used to get information.

A person is restrained on a "board", then a cloth is placed over their face (nose and mouth), then water is poured on the cloth. This gives the sensation of drowning since the person can't breath through a wet cloth.

Answer 8

All Humans are scum, with the exception of a few, unfortunately they do not hold a position in power or high ranking politics..

Answer 9

Waterboarding is when the prisoner is strapped to a board, a cloth placed over their face, and then water is poured onto the cloth to simulate the sensation of drowning.  Proponents claim it isn't torture because the prisoner is not harmed, but then so is actual drowning if it's done right.

Answer 10

When the US does it, it's not "waterboarding".  It's a "Freedom Bath".

~Syl

ETA: Penfold, I know I've used this analogy before, but do think about it.  When you move into a new house you absolutely love but the bathroom or bedroom is a hideous color, do you move out or do you fix it?  We need to fix our rooms here.  My family came to the US from the KoS willingly and we stay because I happen to love California.  I'm not leaving - I will not abandon my adopted home because I don't like certain policies.  That is why some of us stay even if we are horrified by the apparent lack of civilized behavior that seems to be so prevalent in the US today.  We will help steer this wonderful country back in the proper direction.  

Well, it's what we hope, at least.

Answer 11

According to neocons, is is akin to a fun party game where a bunch of stong men strap a person to a board, put a burlap bag over the persons head, incline them backward and pour water into their mouth until they confess.

Attorney General Murkasey stated to Congress that it was not a torture technique, but when asked by Ted Kennedy if Murkasey would consider it torture if waterboarding was conducted on Murkasey, he replied yes.

So apparently it is a torture technique if used on certain Americans, but not torture if it is used on anyone else.

Answer 12

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Wat...

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/opi...

To the answerer who said that you can not die from Waterbroading!

If somebody were to want you dead then waterbroading could be used to kill you!

As with any other from of torture!

A good torture does not kill! dead men don't talk!

But torture does not always provide the truth, it is good for getting people to say that which is wanted to be heard!

Looking arounsd the web I see there are many who state that this is ok because 2978 people were killed on 911!

Well if we use this logic and consider the 2 million people killed as a direct cause of the US invasion of Iraq!

The question then flips around to what should the families of these people be allowed to do to US service men and women!

Of course this would be a ridiculous statement, but so is that for the justification of inhumanity in any form!

Answer 13

Is that what them Hi-wiyans do in the breakers?

Answer 14

It's torture by drowning, but it's worse than drowning because drowning doesn't tend to go on for minutes, never mind hours, days or weeks on end.

Of course it can kill, when people are wounded, have been beaten, deprived of sleep, subjected to stress positions, blasted by loud noise day and night - it's not a military training exercise with limits, it just goes on... taking you to the brink of insanity.

The stress kills some, others crack, either way, you'd never be the same again after torture would you?

Collecting intelligence has nothing to do with it and it fatally undermines any attempts to win neutral hearts and minds. Strategic pointless FUBAR by people who live in a political vengeful political Us and Them world... it's amoral debauchery conducted by mindless criminals and sadists.  It's a reminder of the kind of people some vote in to office.

We are being unduly kind anyway, we haven't covered the ones who are exported by the CIA into the hands of the kind of animals who boil people alive... Bush and his henchmen are very sick little puppies and the worst possible advert for 'democracy'.