More disturbing discoveries in the torture memos: doctors were on hand with equipment to perform emergency tracheotomies on detainees in case they stopped breathing properly due to extensive water boarding.
You know, where they cut a hole in your throat so you can get enough air not to die.
I don’t understand how people can still insist this wasn’t torture.
I’ve crawled through several sections of the 2005 memo cited (pdf) myself now. The tracheotomy part can be found in the second paragraph of page 14. (I actually read the memo backward for some reason, but this particular part is on p. 14). I’ve also found from reading it that these rules were created pretty much in response to worse torture before this, such as the repeated waterboarding of KSM 183 times in one month… though they don’t acknowledge that.
This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.
