The Charlatan has come out of the closet in his memoir and admits he approved torture. According to the torturer in chief, the CIA asked if he approved of the water-boarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. "Damn right!", was his reply. In February Dick Cheney also owned up to torture. So there is no argument anymore that the former President of the United States is a war criminal. He, and people under his direction, violated the UN Convention Against Torture. The Convention requires signatory nations which includes the United States, to enforce its provisions. Both Forty-four and his Justice Department have declared water boarding to be a type of torture* proscribed by international law and have banned its use. What remains to be seen is what is he going to do about the violations. After Tuesday's election results, nothing is less than even money.
*Spanish inquisitors called it "tortura de aqua". "Unequivocally torture” is how U.S. Brigadier General David Irvine described water-boarding, after teaching POW interrogation and military law for 18 years. Whatever you call it, the technique is meant to instill the body's gag reflexes in response to a slow drowning.
