Joe Scarborough was fighting on the Twitters today. When confronted with the post WWII prosecution of Japanese officers for waterboarding American prisoners, Scarborough's excuse was:
The Japanese technique was far more savage.
So there are degrees of simulated drowning? Here's a firsthand description of Japanese waterboarding:
They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air. . . . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.
And the Bush OLC memo dated May, 10 2005:
How is this less savage than the Japanese waterboarding, Joe?
Adding... KSM was waterboarded 183 times in a single month.
Adding II... One of the most successful American interrogations in Iraq was George Piro's process with Saddam Hussein. Without employing torture of any kind, Piro was able to get Saddam to reveal volumes of information about Iraq, WMD and his former regime. This is a story worth reading from beginning to end.