On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:46:17 -0500, VTR wrote:
> Waterboarding and Inquistion
> David M. Gitlitz
>
>
> February 9, 2008
>
> Why has the Bush administration been dancing around the question of
> whether waterboarding is torture?
>
> Waterboarding was one of the most common tortures employed by the
> Spanish Inquisition for the first half of its 450-year-long history
> (circa 1480-1834). This has never been a secret. It is attested to by
> reams of do***ents - letters, debates, manuals of instruction and
> copious records of trials that include verbatim accounts of the torture
> sessions themselves - in the Historical Archives of Spain and Mexico, in
> which I have worked for the last 30 years. The information about
> inquisitorial waterboarding has also been available to the
> English-reading general public since publication of H.C. Lea’s A
History
> of the Inquisition, the last volume of which appeared a hundred years
> ago this year.
>
> Here is Lea’s description of the inquisitorial waterboarding:
>
> "The patient was placed on an escalera or potro - a kind of trestle,
> with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder. It slanted so that the
> head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in
> which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat
> kept it immovable. A bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a
> toca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water
> trickling slowly from a jarra or jar, holding usually a little more than
> a quart. The patient gasped and felt he was suffocating, and at
> intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth.
> The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars
> consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight."
>
> The Spanish Inquisition, unlike many American lawmakers and members of
> the executive branch, did not waffle about labeling waterboarding a
> torture. Waterboarding was not invented in Spain: Since the middle of
> the 13th Century it had been used by European civil and ecclesiastical
> courts, particularly the Papal Inquisition, in Rome. In Spain no one
> voiced doubts, as did Michael Mukasey during his October confirmation
> hearings for U.S. attorney general, and at a hearing just the other day,
> about whether waterboarding might not technically be torture.
>
> President Bush, on the other hand, has no doubts at all. Unlike his
> nominee, he spoke with inquisitor-like certainty when he proclaimed that
> our physically coercive techniques "are safe, they are lawful and they
> are necessary." He apparently sees no contradiction in simultaneously
> insisting that these "classified interrogation procedures" be conducted
> offshore so as to remove them from the jurisdiction and safeguards of
> the American judicial system.
>
> The Spanish Inquisition guaranteed to the accused many of the legal
> protections that the current administration has worked so hard to sweep
> under the rug. Within the context of their times the Inquisition’s
> stance, succinctly laid out in its 1561 Manual of Instruction to
> Inquisitors, was remarkable. Both the prosecuting and court-appointed
> defense attorneys had access to the substance of all of the testimonies
> relating to the accused. The accused could disqualify the testimony of
> anyone whom he or she could prove had animus against them. Inquisitors
> had to weigh the full arguments of the defense and the prosecution
> before ordering a torture session. The order required a unanimous vote
> of the judges. If the defense attorney didn’t accept the decision, he
> could appeal the ruling to the Inquisition’s Supreme Council (though
in
> practice they rarely did).
>
> Gathered in the torture chamber itself were the inquisitors, a
bishop’s
> representative, and a recording secretary adept at speedwriting, which
> was the videotaping of its day. The attending doctor could rule the
> accused unfit to be tortured, and could order the procedure stopped at
> any time. Once the accused was brought into the torture chamber, he was
> offered several chances - the average seems to have been about six- to
> make full voluntary confession. Fear in the presence of imminent pain
> was generally enough to loosen the accused person’s tongue. It was
only
> when fear alone did not work that torture was applied, with each step of
> the procedure, each jar of water and turn of the winch, each question
> and each choked-out answer, duly noted by the recording secretary. None
> of the participants ever destroyed those do***ents out of fear of
> embarrassment or indictment for their actions. Nor did their bosses. The
> original recordings were archived, and after 500 years are still
> available.
>
> I am not praising the Spanish Inquisition. I know enough about the real
> Inquisition - not the cartoon version of Monty Python nor the
> sensationalist horrors of the Black Legend - to know that the
> Inquisition was heinous in almost every way. Though debates raged then
> and still rage among scholars about the reliability of the information
> elicited by these procedures, there is no disagreement about one fact:
> Waterboarding was torture. That was its intent, and that, in conjunction
> with a variety of other torments, was how the Spanish inquisitors used
> it. Even today popular imagination condemns them for it. For the United
> States to adopt even one of the Inquisition’s torture techniques
exposes
> us, rightly, to moral condemnation.
>
> The United States has long been a beacon to the world for its ethical
> principles (even when sometimes these have been honored in the breach).
> Equal treatment under the law. Habeas corpus. Free and open discussion
> informed by access to information and a free press. Checks and balances
> to ensure that these rights are protected.
>
> That the Bush-Cheney administration has squandered our human and
> material resources in this so-called war against terror is a calamity
> that will affect us for decades. But that they have blown away our moral
> capital, that they have compromised the principles that define us as a
> nation, that is a tragedy.
>
> David M. Gitlitz is a professor of Hispanic studies at the University of
> Rhode Island.
Got a link, please?
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