BY BEN VAN ZEE

In print | March 6, 2008

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the U.S. federal government’s use of a method called waterboarding, a technique the CIA refers to as an “enhanced interrogation technique.” The process involves strapping someone to a board, elevating their feet and covering their eyes. Water is then poured on the person’s body, while water is simultaneously poured down their nose and throat, which simulates drowning. This process is repeated until the individual either divulges the information their captors are interested in, or the person is rendered unconscious. In the event that the person loses consciousness, they are revived and the process begins again.

Waterboarding sounds similar to what we used to call torture, does it not? But, you might say, the U.S. government would never torture people in order to extract information from them, would they? The simple answer is, yes. Newsweek reported last month that Bush administration officials have admitted to using waterboarding on suspected terrorists in 2002 and 2003. The implementation of waterboarding has allowed the U.S. government to go down in history with all the other famous propagators of the technique, such as the Khmer Rouge and the Spanish Inquisition.

Vice President Dick Cheney seemed unconcerned by the nature of waterboarding in 2006 when he said, “A dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives.” This statement aroused a bit of a ruckus among human rights activists, and Cheney noted a few days later that he was not referring to the practice of waterboarding. If Cheney was not referring to the practice of waterboarding, what was he referring to? Perhaps a pleasant swim? Not likely; he most certainly was referring to the practice of waterboarding.

Even if waterboarding could possibly save lives, we set a bad precedent for the future by using such techniques. In condoning the use of torture techniques such as waterboarding we are setting ourselves on a path down a slippery slope. Where is the limit to how much we should torture someone in order to benefit society as a whole? If we accept the practice under any circumstance, the line between when we should and should not use torture techniques grows continuously ambiguous.

According to a statement made by a Pentagon official in a Washington Post Article, the Defense Department has examined at least thirty-five interrogation techniques, twenty-four which are approved under a “classified directed.” The Pentagon has refused to disclose the twenty-four interrogation procedures currently being used on prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.

But those are suspected terrorists, aren’t they? Surely, the U.S. government would not detain and torture innocent people, right? Wrong. In September of 2006, the New York Times reported the story of a man named Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was taken captive at JFK international airport in September of 2002 on his way home from a vacation. Mr. Arar was transported to Syria by the U.S. government where he spent almost a year in a jail cell, being periodically tortured with a device he described as a shredded electric cable. He was imprisoned until October of 2003, when he was released after the U.S. government realized they had arrested him on erroneous information. The mistakes made involving Mr. Arar’s case have significantly impacted U.S. intelligence relations with Canada, and the Washington Post adds that, “other cases of rendition have similarly upset U.S. intelligence relations with Italy, Germany and Sweden.”

How far are we really willing to allow the federal government to overstep its bounds when making judgments it claims to be “vital to national security?” Napoleon Bonaparte was once quoted saying, “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.” To me, this “war on terror” jazz is nothing more than a contemporary and convenient method to control the masses.

Ben is a first-year. He can be reached at bvanzee1@swarthmore.edu.

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