W's Legacy

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a high-ranking al-Qaeda official, is a bad guy. I hope he rots in hell. I grieve for the 3,000 Americans murdered on September 11, 2001 by him and his ilk.

But America has lost its moral compass over him and the rest of the al-Qaeda crew.

Imagine drowning. Sputtering, tired, terrified, helpless. I imagine when it happens, you just want it to be over with, to have your suffering end. Imagine being miraculously revived, then you drown all over again. Imagine that happening over and over and over and over again. You can't comprehend it.

Or imagine your brave, strong son, and he's a soldier now in America's wars. He's caught by the enemy and they tie him down onto a board, close his nose, cover his mouth with a wet cloth and slowly pour a heavy volume of water onto the cloth, right where his open, gasping mouth is. That's waterboarding.

When he passes out from near-asphyxia, imagine them reviving him, letting him catch his breath for a moment, so his larynx stops spasming, and then they do it again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

In 2003, after Mohammed was stripped, given an enema, shackled standing for hours on end, deprived of sleep, put in a horse collar and slammed repeatedly into a plywood wall, doused frequently with cold water and kept for days naked and restrained in a cold environment, he was waterboarded 183 times.

The CIA did that to him. On orders issued by the White House. Justified by self-serving, made -up ridiculous (and wrong) legal opinions issued by Justice Department lawyers like John Yoo, now a law professor at a prestigious school on the left coast.

While the Decider was off somewhere scrambling syntax to everyone's merriment, and the Great Bird Hunter was shooting his friend in the face, Mohammed was sputtering and dying 183 times.

Mohammed wasn't the only captive treated like that by Americans. Mohammed and his ilk succeeded in making Americans to be just like the al-Qaeda people they are battling, repugnant and utterly adrift morally.

Did you vote for that guy? Maybe twice? Shame!