President Bush vetoed a bill that would have effectively banned waterboarding by the CIA. Waterboarding has been in the news lately as the government debates whether or not it is a form of torture. If you need anymore fuel to feed the fire against Bush, you can add this to your list. Waterboarding is a form of torture, and torture is something that the United States has prided itself on avoiding. This is truly a travesty; America is rapidly losing its image around the world as a humane nation. To prove my point, here is a general history of waterboarding and what exactly constitutes torture.
In initially searching ‘waterboarding’ on Google, one will discover, beneath the links going to this very story, is the Wikipedia entry on the topic. Within the first sentence of the article, the sixth word in, we see this:
“Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward…and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.”
This process effectively causes the subject to suffocate, simulating drowning.
The historical uses of waterboarding date back to the Spanish Inquisition and in a more modern case, a Japanese soldier was prosecuted and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after waterboarding an American citizen in 1947. The trial was conducted, of course, by the U.S.
International law states that waterboarding is torture, and the Bush administration repeatedly denies that those particular laws under the Geneva Conventions are applicable to the U.S.
So what is the punishment for the crime of carrying out waterboarding? It is considered a war crime, so those who carry it out are war criminals.
It would be foolish to try and impeach those responsible in the Bush administration (including Bush himself) at this point in time since it’ll take longer than they’ll be in office to carry out a trial. But that doesn’t change the fact of what is going on. It is definitely torture, and Bush doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. 
Comics Pictured: Prickly City - by Scott Stantis; 28 February and 1 March respectively.