Obama Bans Waterboarding Terrorists, But Pentagon Won't Say If It Still Waterboards Military Trainees

"Although President Obama has prohibited the use of waterboarding in interrogating captured al Qaeda terrorists, the Defense Department will not say whether it has stopped using waterboarding in its training of certain U.S. military personnel, as was discussed in a 2002 government memo made public last week. CNSNews.com April 22, 2009"

You might have seen a letter circulating around the Internet--it details the "torture" that our own U.S. Navy Survival Evasion and Resistance Escape (SERE) used to train pilots--this one during the Carter years. It has gone "viral" I'm sure, so if you haven't seen it yet in your e-mail, just google it. It's pretty gruesome and goes way beyond waterboarding. The DoD memo stated, "that waterboarding had a “near 100 percent” effectiveness rate in extracting information from [our Navy] trainees, while no soldiers were harmed physically or psychologically by it."

The retired pilot suggests that if there are any charges brought against the Bush administration officials, then there should be a class action suit against all those presidents in office, including Carter and Clinton, whose administrations participated in torturing our Navy pilots.

He also asks why John McCain, who is against torture, supported SERE.

Good point. HT Howard.