Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson is getting kind of shrill:
“My proposal on torture is serious,” Robinson wrote on a washingtonpost.com discussion board Sunday. “Let me know if you agree: Bush administration officials who claim the “harsh” interrogation techniques being used on terrorism suspects are not torture should have to undergo those same techniques. Personally. Repeatedly.”
The New York Times revealed last week that secret Justice Department documents explicitly authorized “a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.” Bush repeated denials that the US does not torture prisoners, although he has not discussed what specific tactics are used.
“Clearly, he is using a narrow definition of torture: If we haven’t actually put anybody on the rack or pulled out his fingernails, we haven’t committed torture,” Robinson writes. “Until George W. Bush can say, ‘Hey, I’ve been waterboarded, and it wasn’t so bad,’ or Alberto Gonzales can say, ‘To tell the truth, spending those three days naked in a freezing-cold cell wasn’t painful or anything,’ then I’ll continue to believe that history will condemn this administration for a shocking lapse of moral judgment. Bush will be remembered as the president who tried to justify torture.”
Actually, he will be remembered as the president that did torture people…And as the president that got over half a million people killed for no good reason.