Ethics

Nance Demands Torture Prosecutions

By Ed Brayton

Malcolm Nance, longtime Navy officer who trained Navy SEALs on how to withstand torture techniques like waterboarding, has a column in the NY Daily News demanding that former Bush administration officials who approved of torture be prosecuted. He begins by establishing his credentials:

I have been engaged in the hunt for al-Qaeda for almost two decades. And, as I once wrote in the Daily News, I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people - as we trained our own fighting men and women to endure and resist the interrogation tactics they might be subjected to by our enemies. I know waterboarding is torture because I have been on the giving and receiving end of the practice.

This was during the last four years of my military career, when I served at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school. Working there, and helping protect our servicemen and women, was my greatest pride. We especially emphasized escape, because captivity by al-Qaeda's Jihadis would be severe, if not, final. Our methods of instruction were intense, but realistic and safe.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 22, 2009 (boomark / email).