Try to remain calm — even as you begin to feel your chest tighten and your heart race. Try not to panic as water starts flowing into your nose and mouth, while you attempt to constrict your throat and slow your breathing and keep some air in your lungs and fight that growing feeling of suffocation. Try not to think about dying, because there’s nothing you can do about it, because you’re tied down, because someone is pouring that water over your face, forcing it into you, drowning you slowly and deliberately. You’re helpless. You’re in agony.
In short, you’re a victim of “water torture.” Or the “water cure.” Or the “water rag.” Or the “water treatment.” Or “tormenta de toca.” Or any of the othernicknames given to the particular form of brutality that today goes by the relatively innocuous term “waterboarding.”
The practice only became widely known in the United States after it was disclosed that the CIA had been subjecting suspected terrorists to it in the wake of 9/11. More recently, cinematic depictions of waterboarding in the award-winning film Zero Dark Thirty and questions about it at the Senate confirmation hearing for incoming CIA chief John Brennan have sparked debate. Water torture, however, has a surprisingly long history, dating back to at least the fourteenth century. It has been a U.S. military staple since the beginning of the twentieth century, when it was employed by Americans fighting an independence movement in the Philippines. American troops would continue to use the brutal tactic in the decades to come — and during the country’s repeated wars in Asia, they would be victims of it, too.
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Our journey is not complete,” says President Obama, “until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law” (Obama puts gay equality centre stage, 22 January). In similarly stirring terms, Obama mentioned several uncompleted journeys in his inaugural speech, but overlooked the “journey” toward closing Guantánamo. This is especially strange as Obama made this a key priority immediately after taking office in 2009. It now seems the president has abandoned this journey. Which is bad news for its 166 detainees – including the former UK resident Shaker Aamer, who remains uncharged, untried and apparently forgotten. 
Sweden’s foreign minister Carl Bildt has stated that Sweden received no information with regards to two Swedes, suspected of terror crime in Somalia, who were extradited to the US. In an interview with Sveriges Radio on Saturday, Bildt was asked whether Sweden received any information before the Swedes were taken to the US.
WASHINGTON, D.C. November 13, 2012 — Leon Trotsky once said: “you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
