Sunday, December 16, 2007

Waterboarding


Lots of good stuff on The Left Coaster today. This is from Mary:

Waterboarding was the most extreme torture allowed by King James I of England.

This resurrects the process of official cruelty under the Stuart monarchs in seventeenth century England. Persons accused of state crimes very frequently were interrogated with the use of specific techniques, including the rack, the thumbscrew, and waterboarding. King James I personally described the process in The Kings Booke (1606). He would, on the advice of his officers, “approve no new torture,” but he would certainly avail himself of the existing practices. In ascending order of severity they were: thumbscrews, the rack and waterboarding. That’s right. Waterboarding was considered the most severe of the official forms of torture. Worse than the rack and thumbscrews.

Sure shows how much we've progressed from the 17th century.

The rack. Thumbscrews.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

King James would be shocked to see how many people practice self torture today, but then most people did not know how to swim and surely never took a bath!

Anonymous said...

I guess that explains it then.