Brief History Of Waterboarding - Olbermann.
Olbermann takes on the Republican mantra that the practice of waterboarding is somehow a gray area under law, with people confused over whether or not it constitutes torture.
It is, of course, and never has been, a subject over which there has ever been any confusion. Waterboarding has always been considered torture.
The astonishing thing is that the Bush administration, in what was described as "a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm", introduced waterboarding without even realising that the US had charged people who had resorted to such measures as war criminals.
Which is why Republicans and their supporters now feign confusion over whether or not the tactics of the Spanish Inquisition constitute torture.
The Bush regime were simply too ignorant of history to realise that the world had already long passed it's verdict on that practice.
And Bush, of all bloody people, should have been aware of the illegality of this practice:
In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning". The sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies to four years.Bush was the governor of Texas after all, one would think he might have heard of this.
UPDATE:
Sean Hannity has said he would be waterboarded for charity, giving the money to the troops. Olbermann takes him up on this, offering Hannity $1,000 for every second that he can endure this torture. Olbermann thinks that this will be money well spent simply to hear Hannity finally admit that waterboarding is torture.
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