Our humanity is in peril

Re: “Research first, then write,” Rick Pennington, May 2:

Great advice. However, my point here is how that advice applies to our views of the use and definition of torture.

I’d recommend any of 21 books I’ve researched, authored by investigative journalists, lawyers, former guards, military interrogators and Guantanamo detainees themselves.

I’d submit, besides “bugs in a box,” what “enhanced methods” used at Guantanamo I believe we should be talking about. Consider detainees being “short-shackled,” wrists and ankles, to an eye-bolt in the floor – naked in a frigid cell for 24 hours and longer – forced to urinate and defecate on themselves.

How about their alternately being subjected to 100 degree-plus temperatures for similar periods? How about total solitary confinement for months while being bombarded 24/7 with deafening noise? How about being convinced their children and female family members are in custody and will be tortured and raped?

Waterboarding is ludicrously characterized as the “misperception of drowning.” Whether you’re strapped to a board and forced to breathe water through a continuously saturated cloth, or your head is submerged in a toilet, only your tormentor determines if you drown or not.

Accountability and reclaiming our humanity are at stake here.

Dave Vent

Spokane Valley