A few decades ago, it wasn't called waterboarding, it was called

"Chinese water torture."

And there was no doubt that it was torture,
when the "commies" were being accused of doing it.

I haven't had time to watch this yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFFslAjUyj4

That's how I tormented my little brother.

Chinese water torture is a simple but insidious form of psychological torture. Waterboarding has an undeniable physical component to it.

is much closer to what we now now as waterboarding.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6647.html

SNIP

But waterboarding was also a prime subject of controversy in Congress and in the U.S. more than 100 years ago.

The occasion was the Philippine insurrection, which began soon after the American victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898. It soon became clear that the American liberation of the Philippines from Spanish rule did not mean freedom for the Filipinos but annexation by the United States.

The Filipinos fought back savagely against the American occupation, committing many atrocities.

American soldiers responded with what was called the “water cure” or “Chinese water torture.” As described in a 1902 congressional hearing: “A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs and hold him down, and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin ... is simply thrust into his jaws, ... and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose, ... until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious. ... His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning but who cannot drown.”

SNIP

http://www.visualstatistics.net.nyud.net:8090/East-West/Contemporary%20Torture/Water%20Torture.jpg

Water Torture - a woodcut in Damhoudere's (1556)
Praxis Rerum Criminalium. Antwerp, Flanders.

Joos de Damhouder
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Joos de Damhouder (1507-1581), also referred to as Joost, Jost, Josse or Jodocus (de) Damhouder, was a jurist from the Seventeen Provinces, whose works had a lasting influence on European criminal law.

Born in Bruges, de Damhouder studied law in Leuven and Orléans. After obtaining his doctorate in 1533, he practiced law as an advocate in Bruges. In 1537 he was appointed legal advisor of the city authorities, from which office he retired in 1550 to become clerk of the urban criminal court. In 1552 he was made a member of the Dutch Council of Finance by Mary of Habsburg, governor of the Netherlands, and held that office until 1575. He died 1581 in Antwerp, six years after his wife, with whom he had had three daughters and a son.

His principal work was the Praxis rerum criminalium (1554), a manual on the practice of criminal law, which he almost entirely plagiarised from an unpublished text by Filips Wielant and from other works. The book was a great success and saw numerous translations in other European languages, partly due to de Damhouder's novel approach of illustrating the various crimes and procedural stages with woodcuts. He later published a complementary work on civil law, the Praxis rerum civilum (1567), which was also an unattributed translation of a work by Wielant.

The most immediate impact of de Damhouder's works was on the witch trials of the time, in which the Praxis rerum criminalium and its translations were cited regularly as fundamental works. The Praxis dedicated a lengthy 64 paragraphs to witchcraft, copied in large part from Paulus Grillandus's Tractatus de sortilegiis. According to the Praxis, witchcraft was a heinous crime that went unpunished too often because of the ignorance of magistrates, and which also covered love charms, fortune-telling, astrology and other superstitious practices. De Damhouder expanded on this by providing detailed practical advice (backed up by examples from his own court practice) on how to conduct interrogations of suspected witches under torture. These included, for example, the recommendation to shave off all hair and to inspect all orifices of the suspect, in order to uncover hidden magical amulets that would make the wearer withstand torture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joos_de_Damhouder

Not the same as waterboarding.

are the same thing.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6647.html

American soldiers responded with what was called the “water cure” or “Chinese water torture.” As described in a 1902 congressional hearing: “A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs and hold him down, and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin ... is simply thrust into his jaws, ... and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose, ... until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious. ... His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning but who cannot drown.”

SNIP


____________________________

Since WE were doing it then, is it surprising that we invented a sanitized kiddie version to describe what WE were doing? Involving drops of water on the forehead?

Waterboarding in American History
William Loren Katz
Counterpunch
November 8, 2007

Some high U.S. officials claim not be aware of it, and Judge Michael Mukasey, the President’s choice for attorney general, prefers to equivocate, but water boarding has long been a form of torture that causes excruciating pain and can lead to death. It forces water into prisoner’s lungs, usually over and over again. The Spanish Inquisition in the late 1400s used this torture to uncover and punish heretics, and then in the early 1500s Spain’s inquisitors carried it overseas to root out heresy in the New World. It reappeared during the witch hysteria. Women accused of sorcery were “dunked” and held under water to see if they were witches.

In World War II Japan and Germany routinely used water boarding on prisoners. In Viet Nam U.S. forces held bound Viet Cong captives and “sympathizers” upside down in barrels of water. Water boarding also has been associated with the Khmer Rouge.

More:
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=748

~~~~
Sunday, August 10, 2008
'Water Boarding' is the Medieval 'Trial by Water'

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/08/water-boarding-is-medieval-trial-by.html

~~~~
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle
Ages and During the Renaissance Period, by Paul Lacroix

Punishments.
Refinements of Penal Cruelty.--Tortures for different Purposes.--Water, Screw-boards, and the Rack.--The Executioner.--Female Executioners.--Tortures.--Amende Honorable.--Torture of Fire, Real and Feigned.--Auto-da-fé.--Red-hot Brazier or Basin.--Beheading.--Quartering.--Wheel.--Garotte.--Hanging.--The Whip.--The Pillory.--The Arquebuse.--Tickling.--Flaying.--Drowning.--Imprisonment.--Regulations of Prisons.--The Iron Cage.--The Leads of Venice.
~snip~
In Paris, for a long time, the water torture was in use; this was the most easily borne, and the least dangerous. A person undergoing it was tied to a board which was supported horizontally on two trestles. By means of a horn, acting as a funnel, and whilst his nose was being pinched, so as to force him to swallow, they slowly poured four coquemars (about nine pints) of water into his mouth; this was for the ordinary torture. For the extraordinary, double that quantity was poured in (Fig. 341). When the torture was ended, the victim was untied, "and taken to be warmed in the kitchen," says the old text.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10940/10940-h/10940-h.htm

But a long, narrow strip of rough cloth was often placed over the victim's mouth. The pouring water would force it into the mouth, down the throat, almost to the stomach. Then the torturers would grab the ends and rip it out, tearing the throat, mouth and gullet.

It just hit me if the use of cling wrap over the face during waterboarding is an attempt to mimic this torture.

hunger strikers. Just read again the other day that they have used unusually large tubes, jammed them down the throats of the men who were refusing to eat, without benefit of any refinement like numbing drugs, etc., and in removing them they did rip these things right out of them bringing out tissue, etc., and they actually slammed the same tubes without cleaning them immediately down the throats of other hunger strikers in the same room so everyone there was demoralized, and horrified even more.

Insanely vicious. How do they ever come back from behavior like this? What a shame.