This is impressively revealed in the recent debate on the technique of 'waterboarding', or simulated drowning. A former military lawyer and current US judge explains that the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breath that one experiences after being punched in the gut...According to those who have studied waterboarding effect, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years.

The Bush administration considers 'near-drowning' to constitute torture but only when it happens in other countries. However, the recently sworn in US Attorney-General Michael Mukasey, as well as three presidential candidates, were unwilling to declare waterboarding torture.

Moreover, Mukasey declared that conduct is banned that 'shocks the conscience'. Nonetheless, conduct that 'shocks in one environment may not be so patently egregious in another'. Thus, the higher the value that is placed on the information the detainee is claimed to possess, the less 'conscience-shocking' the treatment will be held to be and therefore the more 'enhanced' can be the interrogation techniques. It is worth remembering that in October 2006 Vice-President Cheney declared waterboarding a 'no-brainer' if it can save lives. High-value detainees in Guantanamo were singled out for 'special interrogation plans' authorized by former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld under which they were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment can never be justified. Torture is an injustice, not a route to justice. A new approach is needed for all officials in all branches of government: one in which respect for human rights transcends politics, one that incorporates a constant awareness against the erosion of protections against torture ad other ill-treatment, one that commits the full accountability for violations, and one that has at its heart full and ongoing adherence to the United States' international legal obligations.