Woman Who Ran Secret Prison In Thailand Bypassed As Top Spy

[disagree]

Honestly, I don't understand why people get their panties in a bunch over the U.S.A.'s use of torture, and specifically, water-boarding? It's not like it's anything new, other than the euphemism. Back in 1901 when the U.S. military tortured Filipino insurgents it was called "the water cure". But in the end, the Philippine Commission, headed by the illustrious William Howard Taft, determined that these insurgents invited torture, so all's well that ends not so well.

Our's is a country which stands on strong moral principles, until it is convenient to do otherwise.

ANNALS OF AMERICAN HISTORY

THE WATER CURE

Debating torture and counterinsurgency—a century ago.

BY PAUL KRAMER

FEBRUARY 25, 2008

Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom. This was the language that, when coupled with expanding military and commercial ambitions, had helped launch two very different wars. The first had been in 1898, against Spain, whose remaining empire was crumbling in the face of popular revolts in two of its colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. The brief campaign was pitched to the American public in terms of freedom and national honor (the U.S.S. Maine had blown up mysteriously in Havana Harbor), rather than of sugar and naval bases, and resulted in a formally independent Cuba.

The Americans were not done liberating. Rising trade in East Asia suggested to imperialists that the Philippines, Spain’s largest colony, might serve as an effective “stepping stone” to China’s markets. U.S. naval plans included provisions for an attack on the Spanish Navy in the event of war, and led to a decisive victory against the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in May, 1898. Shortly afterward, Commodore George Dewey returned the exiled Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo to the islands. Aguinaldo defeated Spanish forces on land, declared the Philippines independent in June, and organized a government led by the Philippine élite.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_kramer

what's all the outrage about witch-hunts nowadays? we did burn witches since the middle ages

[RubbaJohnny]

I have heard that the prison is now in Dubai, how true this is one cannot tell ,as you really can't believe anything out of Thailand, similar problem arises with China , but that's another story.

I think you may mean the prisoner is in Dubai,or until the music stops and everyone changes place again

Mandela was a prisoner and despite the racism of Apartheid he seems to have had better treatment than the specially rendered.

Those who did not survive have been folded into flatpack horsebugers at Sickia