Robin T Cox wrote:
> 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 intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth.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?
>
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_torture8_02-08-08_LJ8NASA_v18.38d1627.html
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