CIA admits waterboarding inmates
US admits waterboarding terror suspects

Who doesn’t enjoy splashing around in the sea, or going to the local public baths for a few lengths?

Waterboarding involves strapping a suspect down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world.

Who doesn’t enjoy their lungs filling with water, the sensation of losing consciousness, the certainty of impending death?

In congressional testimony, CIA director Michael Hayden became the first administration official to publicly acknowledge the agency used waterboarding on detainees following the September 11 2001, terrorist attacks.

Well done Michael. You’ve made the first step in a long process of rehabilitation and recovery. But no mention of what high jinx they got up to before November the 9th? I wonder exactly when waterboarding became the CIA’s favored technique, and what techniques they used before it. Come now CIA + US, you must be honest with yourself if you truly seek redemption.

“We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time,” Mr Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we had limited knowledge about al Qaida and its workings. Those two realities have changed.”

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

J.K.