[link|http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/25/giuliani_torture/|Salon]:

You know we've come a long way as a country when the leading presidential candidate for the incumbent party suggests that perhaps one of the oldest, [link|http://www.slate.com/id/2176402/|most iconic forms] of torture known to man isn't torture at all, and we only think it is because we've been misled by our "liberal media." [link|http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/torquemada/index.html|History] no doubt also has a well-known liberal bias:

The first level of torture employed by the Spanish Inquisition was the "water cure." Water was poured into the accused's open mouth. The linen cloth was washed into the opening of the throat, preventing the accused from spitting the water back out. The overwhelming sensation of drowning forced the accused to swallow the water. The rules of torture as written by Torquemada, a man whom historians have compared to Hitler, stipulated that no more than eight liters of water could be used in a single session.

Perhaps the most revealing part of Giuliani's response was his comment that whether waterboarding is torture "depends on who does it." That pretty much sums up the prevailing right-wing view on this issue: It's not torture when we do it. It's American exceptionalism taken to an absurd and frightening extreme. It doesn't matter that we draft detailed reports every year chastising all other countries in the world who are known to engage in this activity. It doesn't matter that we've prosecuted people in the past for war crimes for engaging in this same activity. Somehow acts that we would all agree are torture when committed by other countries cease to be torture when they are authorized by the U.S. government (but only for us; it's still torture if others do it). If anyone thinks that the United States' standing in the world will improve if Giuliani becomes president, they're sadly mistaken.

Well said.

Cheers,
Scott.