Why Waterboarding Doesn’t Work On Babies
Also from the May 1 issue of Democracy Now
A sweet picture of Fighting Bob that has no relevance to this post but is too good not be used
Waterboarding is the most cruel, the most extremely cruel form of torture known to man, very simply because of this—and people don’t understand, I think, waterboarding. Amy, if you and I were riding in a car, and we went off a bridge in January here in Wisconsin and crashed through the ice and went down to the bottom of the Ohio River, within three minutes you and I would be dead from drowning. If there were an infant in a car seat behind us, that infant could survive for twenty minutes under water. A weak, fragile three-month-old infant could survive twenty minutes under water, be plucked by the rescue crew from the waters and suffer no brain damage, be perfectly fine. Alright? How can this happen? It’s the mammalian diving reflex. The human being is so afraid of death by drowning that we are hardwired into our biology, into our…
JUAN GONZALEZ: I want to—
ALFRED McCOY: —brains with this bizarre mammalian diving reflex. So, therefore, waterboarding, which induces this primal fear of death by drowning, is the most painful form of torture you can concoct. That’s why it’s existed for 500 years.
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, you have a question?
……
ALFRED McCOY: Two points. First of all, waterboarding is torture under US law, because it constitutes a death threat. OK? It’s a threat to die by drowning. Alright? So, one, waterboarding is torture.
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