Rick Siegel Prespectives on Freedom and Liberty

In a stunning admission yesterday by CIA director Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged the use of Waterboarding on its captives. The torture traces it’s history back to the Catholic Inquisition and is condemned world wide through International Treaty and Law. Waterboarding is the act of strapping a victim to a board with the head low and feet high, covering the face with a wet cloth and pouring water in the nose and mouth bringing the victim to the point of drowning. The Catholic church used this method to convert the heathen into submission.

"We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time," Hayden confessed. "There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable." Stated Hayden in defense of breaking the treaty and laws. Interesting to note the law, in the government’s eyes, is not applicable to their actions when or if they so determine. Should we all be so cavalier there would be no order and we would end in a fascist state. Government must be the first to obey the laws it agrees and sets without circumventing or reinventing.

Hayden admitted the government tortured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri throughout 2002 and 2003. The technique was “officially banned” in 2006, but Mike McConnell clarified to senators that Waterboarding remains a viable tool in the CIA arsenal. His caveat that it must be at the specific consent of the president and legally approval by the attorney general.

The CIA not only admits to inquisition style torture but reaffirms it will continue as long as a single branch of government, the executive, consents with approval of the presidents appointed attorneys. This allows the president to run his own government, laws, and rules above and separate from the other two, the judiciary and the congress.

We are at a time in history that has redefined the once proud Republic that struck a balance of power between a judiciary, an executive and the people has become a one-man dictatorship who decides with his friends what is right and what is wrong. The checks and balances are out of balance, as the executive branch has become its own immune, illegal, criminal war machine. Americans are left holding the bag for their elected criminals in name and hatred from the rest of the civilized world. Becoming the 21st century inquisitors is not what America once stood for. A once proud beacon of liberty has turned into the flashlight of fascism and torture as it forces nations in pre-emptive wars to adopt American principals. But these principals include torture and pre-emptive death and destruction for those who differ or argue. A look in the mirror becomes repugnant.

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