The Inquisition --expert in such matters --called it what is: tortura del aqua. In English: Water Torture!

Headlined on 12/21/07:
How the GOP Abuses Language to Cloak its Criminal Political Agenda
by Len Hart Page 1 of 1 page(s)



Let's make a few things clear at the start. "Water boarding" is not "harsh interrogation" nor is it an "enhanced interrogation technique". It's bloody torture. "Water boarding" was invented by the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition --expert in such matters --called it what is: tortura del aqua (the toca). In English: Water Torture! I suggest that GOPPERS persisting in playing stupid word games submit themselves to tortura del aqua. Afterward, I will be happy to debate the issue with them.




Waterboarding is a form of that consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.



Painting of waterboarding at Cambodia's Prison, by former inmate .


Spanish Inquisition

A form of torture similar to waterboarding called toca, along with garrucha (or ) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack), was used (though infrequently) during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. "The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning."[23] One source has claimed that the use of water as a form of torture also had profound religious significance to the Inquisitors.[24]






The CIA's criminal admission

February 7, 2008
THE Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have both banned the use of waterboarding in interrogations, but a spokesman for President Bush said yesterday that Bush could still authorize its use in the future. Congress, which already passed a broadly worded ban on torture in 2006, has no choice but to specifically prohibit this technique.



Related story Democrats press Mukasey on waterboarding

more stories like this

• U.S. acknowledges use of waterboarding
• Feds want rendition lawsuit dismissed
• CIA says used waterboarding on three suspects

White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto made the statement that Bush still retains the right to use waterboarding after congressional testimony Tuesday by CIA Director Michael Hayden. With the approval of the president, Hayden had told Congress that his agency had used the simulated-drowning technique on three Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. Hayden's testimony was the first official acknowledgement by the government that it had waterboarded suspects.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the CIA waterboarding. Durbin has said he will delay confirmation of Mukasey's deputy until the attorney general responds to this and other issues.

In legislating an explicit ban on waterboarding, Congress should get testimony from the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. He recently told The New Yorker that "whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture." Congress should also hear from its own Senator John McCain, the most vocal supporter on Capitol Hill of the anti-torture law, who has noted that waterboarding was used during the Spanish Inquisition and during Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia.

In 1901 in the United States, the military court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years hard labor a US major who had waterboarded a prisoner in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. The United States officially outlawed the practice after World War II, when the Germans and Japanese had both used it against Allied troops. The Allies executed eight Japanese officers for waterboarding British prisoners and sentenced another to 15 years hard labor for waterboarding a US civilian, among other crimes.

The United Nations' Convention Against Torture prohibits any treatment of prisoners causing long-term physical or mental damage, which human-rights advocates believe includes waterboarding. The Bush administration points to the value of information provided by the Al Qaeda suspects after waterboarding, but outside analysts have questioned the validity of statements by one of the three, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany, militarist Japan, Pol Pot - this is the roster that Bush wants the United States to join. Congress should act to make sure that the United States does not once again stoop to using tortura del agua (water torture). That's what it was called during the Inquisition.

Torture Techniques of the Spanish Inquisition

By JamesRay
http://hubpages.com/hub/Killing-in-the-Name-of-God



The other day, as I was surfing through pictures of medieval torture devices (don't ask), I kept noticing that many such tools were invented by, or at least used in, the Spanish Inquisition. Soon I found myself jumping from one site to another learning more and more about this joint venture between the ultra-conservative government of 15th Century Spain and many of the higher-ups and rank-and-file Christian warriors within the Roman Catholic Church at the time. I found it fascinating, gruesome, and most upsetting, still relevant to the world today.

The Spanish Inquisition began in the late 1470s when Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted to do away with many of their political adversaries. These opponents were called the conversos, former Jews and Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity but had nevertheless managed to rise through the Spanish political and business ranks.

Threatened by their growing power, the King and Queen concocted a plan to purge these competitors from their positions in government and business. Because the couple knew that they didn't have any secular basis for taking on the conversos, who were by most accounts law-abiding and peaceful citizens, they decided to enlist the aid of the Cathoilc Church to lend some religious credibility to their planned attack.

To that end, the royal couple tooks steps to create an Inquisition, the purpose of which would be to identify false converts (fake conversos) within the Spanish Empire.

Initially, the Pope rejected the request. But after the King and Queen threatened to withdraw Spain's troops from defending the Vatican and leaving Christianity undefended against the growing threat of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the Pope caved and issued the Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, through which the Inquisition was established in the Kingdom.

Although the papal bull stated that the Inquisition was to be a religious institution, it gave the King and Queen exclusive rights to name the inquisitors. As a result, the King and Queen were, by 1480, running what was essentially a secular witch hunt (pardon the mixed metaphor) aimed at purging the Kingdom of political enemies, and did so with the blessing and the full assistance of the Church and its priests.

One can see why three hundred years later, the founding fathers of the United States decided it was time to erect a wall between church and state. And when you see what happens next, you'll be glad that you were born in America in the 20th Century, and never had to endure the type of shit that so often occurs when the Church joint ventures with the State to whack political dissidents and religious competitors.

The first official act of the Inquisition seems to have taken place on February 6, 1481, when six conversos were burned alive in public. Their public conflagration was accompanied by a full sermon given by a Catholic priest. This public mass murder, however, was just the beginning.



Torture In the Spanish Inquisition

The ostensible goal of the Inquisition, you'll recall, was the discovery of false converts. In other words, the Inquisition was trying to find out which of the people whom they had forced under penalty of death to convert to Christianity weren't really Christians.

To achieve this end, the Inquisitors employed several means of torture to aid their victims in confessing their hidden allegiance to the Pentateuch or the Koran. One of the most popular techniques was something called called tortura del agua (water torture), which consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning. (The current American term for this torture technique is "waterboarding," and it is being employed against alleged enemy combatants at the direction of the President and the Department of Justice.)

But this form of psycho-physical torture was tame compared to the more painful methods employed by Spanish torturers as priests stood by and urged the alleged sinner to confess.

These included the following.

1. The Strappado



Strappado is a form of torture in which a victim is suspended in the air by a rope attached to his hands which have been tied behind his back.

There are at least three variants of this torture. In the first, the victim has his arms tied behind his back; a large rope is then tied to his wrists and passed over a beam or a hook on the roof. The torturer pulls on this rope until the victim is hanging from his arms. Since the hands are tied behind the back, this action causes extreme pain and possible dislocation of the arms. The full weight of the subject's body is then supported by the extended and internally-rotated shoulder sockets. While the technique shows no external injuries, it caused long-term nerve, ligament, or tendon damage.
The second variation is similar to the first, but with a series of drops from a suspended height. In addition to the damage caused by the suspension, the repeated drops caused major stress to the extended arms, leading to broken shoulders.

In the third variant, the victim's hands are tied to the front. The victim is also hung from the hands, but his ankles are tied and a heavy weight is attached to them. This will cause pain and possible damage not only to the arms, but also to the legs and hips. This variant was known as squassation.

2. The Rack



The rack consists of an oblong rectangular, wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied. The victim's feet are fastened to one roller, and the wrists are chained to the other.

As the interrogation progresses, a handle and ratchet attached to the top roller are used to increase tension on the chains, which induces excruciating pain as the victim's joints slowly dislocate. Once muscle fibers had been stretched past a certain point they lose their ability to contract, the victims who were released had ineffective muscles as well as problems arising from dislocation.

Because of its mechanically precise, graded operation, the rack was well-suited for hard interrogation, and led to many "confessions."

One gruesome aspect of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments or bones. Eventually, if the application of the rack is continued, the victim's limbs were ripped right off.

3. The Judas Chair



This method is particularly brutal. Just reading about the Judas Chair is enought to make one clench. So if you have a weak tummy (or other soft, vulnerable body parts), I suggest that you skip past it.

The Judas Chair was a pyramid-shaped seat (see right). The person being asked to confess his sins against Christ was placed on top of it, with the point inserted into the anus or vagina. Then, as the questioning advanced, the Inquisitor very slowly lowered the defendant further and further onto the point by overhead ropes.

Some theories suggest that the intended effect was to stretch the orifice over a long period of time, or to slowly impale. The victim was usually naked, adding to the humiliation already endured.

Many Other Forms of Torture

There were many other forms of torture used during the Inquisition. These included the Boot (a wooden framed shoe that was placed on the foot of a witness and was tightened slowly and methodically to crush the bones of the feet and the lower leg), the Thumb Screw (which slowly and methodically crushed the fingers of the alleged non-believers), the Whip and the Breast Ripper.
Perhaps the cruelest aspect of the torture process was that after the victim recanted his alleged sins, he was then punished for them. The Inquisition was just the trial to extract a confession. The ensuing punishment ranged from forfeiture of all assets to the Crown and the Cross to, you guessed it, death by torture.

One must keep in mind that the Spanish Government could not have carried out the Inquisition without the active assistance of the Church. This type of mass trial by ordeal, bloody torture, and confiscation of the assets of the accused probably could not have taken place for merely secular reasons.

By including the Church as an arm of the government, however, the King and Queen were able to eliminate their political opponents without very much resistance from the Spanish people, who were told that the Inquisition was something aimed to get everyone to believe the one great truth of Christianity. It was a way to root out evil bogeyman and either kill them or, at the very least, force them to confess their alleged sins against Christ and repent.

All tolled, Spanish Inquisitors tortured or killed as many as 150,000 people people between the years of 1480 and 1530. Most of the victims were Jewish or Muslim. Then, as Protestantism began to rise, the Church turned its ire towards those followers of Martin Luther, a group who claimed to be true Christians but according to the Church, were heretics. Persecution of Protestants continued on for another 150 years.

Torquemada: The Grand Inquisitor



Remember the Inquisition

There is a lesson to be learned here. Well, there are many lessons. One is that a sharp pyramid shoved up the ass can convince a person to admit anything. Another is that when stretched beyond capacity, connective tissue will tear, rip, pop and eventually kill its owner.

But the most important lesson here, perhaps, is the dangers that can be created by a government who uses religion and religious institutions to justify its politically motivated persecution of those who may challenge the government's power. Because if you kill simply in the name of government, you are going to face a lot of resistance. But if you kill in the name of God, it gets much, much easier for the people to accept. Especially for those who belong to the dominant religion.
Watch out. Keep religion and government apart.

__________________
On the 11th day, of every monthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9nR...irdstage%2Ehtm
http://truthaction.org/

Cheney: 'Damn right' I back Bush use of waterboarding

David Edwards and Mike Sheehan
Raw Story
Friday February 8, 2008





KEITH OLBERMANN SPECIAL COMMENT ON WATERBOARDING NOV 5, 2007
http://youtube.com/watch?v=arWJ358tZgU

Waterboarding Instructions (Viewer Discretion Advised)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-GcXl1y_mQw

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On the 11th day, of every monthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9nR...irdstage%2Ehtm
http://truthaction.org/

What an absolutely refreshing and well done, cohesive and all encompassing post Rob! Thanks for putting this together, and if I have the time will gladly add to this thread in the future! And you are correct, nearly all of the known torture devices known to man were invented bu good "Roman Catholics" such as the Dominicans, Friars, and Jesuits! This is a fact! And they were made in the "name of God" while used to do the devils work! I didn't myself know this until about 6 months to a year ago when researching material for the RCC/Illuminate Thread; And the very thought of this sickened my soul for a good long time!

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"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend." --Alexander Hamilton

20 Worst Roman Catholic Torture Devices of All Time:

What would have been the worst aspect of life during the European middle ages? Heinous personal hygiene? No. Disease and famine? Hardly. That really crappy mandolin music that left handed midgets enjoy dancing to? Close, but wrong again. The worst thing about medieval life was the unwavering evil of the Roman Catholic "Justice" system and the tools of torture they employed. The following are the 20 worst torture devices of all time in order of sheer terror: And to the best of my knowledge, each and every one of these devices were made by Orders of the Roman Catholic Church, and most of these below made the the "Holy Dominicans" themselves! If this doesn't show you how Satanic the Vatican is, then probably nothing will!





20. Punishing Shoes The shoes were often used in conjunction with the standing pillory (a device that holds your head and wrists in place while you stand). How long do you think you could stand on your tippy-toes before you had to rest your heels on those iron spikes?






19. Heretic's Fork The four sharp points snugly nestled under the chin and sternum were designed to allow the victim just enough range of motion with his mouth to murmer a confession.






18. Dunking Stool Used primarily on women (as was the case for most devices of pseudo-sexual torture), the dunking stool would dip its occupant into a river for as long as the authorities saw fit.




17. The Boots The victim's legs were placed between two planks of wood and bound together with cords. Between the cords the torturers placed wedges with which they would violently hammer. Each time a wedge was hammered, an acute portion of the shin bone was shattered. The tormentors could hammer at least a dozen wedges up and down the legs. When the Boots were removed, the bone fragments fell to pieces and the skin of the lower legs merely served as loose sacks for them.






16. Water Torture This is the only non-medieval, European torture on our list. The water torture was a favorite among Japanese POW guards during WWII. The victim was first bound with barbed wire and his mouth stuffed with rags. Next, the guards would snake a tube down the victim's nasal passage and bloat his belly with water. Once that was finished, the guards would kick and beat the poor sap's midsection until his stomach lining burst
and and death ensued.





15. Cat's Paw This was simply used to slowly tear the flesh from its victim, often times all the way down to the bone.




14. The Rack It does exactly what it looks like it does: the rack pulls your body from end to end until your limbs are slowly plucked from their joints.





13. Quartering by Horses Quartering is the rack taken to the next level and was reserved only for murderers and those who killed or attempted to take the life of a nobleman or royalty. Each of the prisoner's limbs were tied to a horse and the horses were whipped simultaneously so that each limb would erupt from the body in an instant. A crowd favorite.






12. The Pear Hinging on your gender, the pear was either placed in your anus or your vagina in its thin form and then cranked to open up and blossom into a rather uncomfortable position.






11. Cleansing the Soul In many Catholic countries, the clergy believed that the corrupted soul of a damned person could be cleansed if they were forced to consume boiling water, burning coals, or both. Of course, this was what happened to prisoners before they were punished for their crime -- sort of a "warm-up" torture, if you will.




10. The Hanging Cage The pictured victim is one of the lucky ones because most occupants were caged completely naked to expose them to either extreme cold or hot weather conditions. And... most caged prisoners were usually placed in there only after other means of extreme physical torture were administered. But wait -- there's more! The victims were left in the cage until they died from either the elements or thirst, which could take weeks.




9. The Head Crusher If ever an explanation was in a name, the head crusher is it. Death by head crusher usually went something like this: the teeth imploded into their sockets and smashed the surrounding jaw bones. Then the eyes squirted from their sockets and finally, brain matter squirted from the ears. Unbelievably, many nations still use a version of the head crusher to this very day as an interrogation tool.




8. Burning at the Stake A favorite execution for those accused of witchcaft. Clergy believed that the burning of a witch permanently removed her evil spirits from the physical world, thus eliminating the possibility of any further contamination of innocent souls. Makes sense.






7. Judas Cradle The victim was hoisted above the pyramid and slowly lowered, crotch first, onto its sharpened pinnacle. Hinging on the torturers mood, he could vary the amount of the victim's body weight applied to the point.






6. The Cradle The Cradle is the nastier second cousin to the Judas Cradle. We believe the picture does all the explaining for us.






5. Iron Maiden The following is a depiction of the first recorded use of the Iron Maiden on August 14, 1515 : "A forger of coins was placed inside, and the doors shut slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms and legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulders, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him; and so, he remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died."







4. Interrogation Chair Not only were the hundreds of tiny spikes uncomfortable to sit on, but a fire was usually kindled under the iron chair to make it reach a horrible scalding point.






3. Impalement This was the standard form of punishment for traitors in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Salee during the Middle Ages. Believe it or not, once the lengthy spike entered the victim's posterior and exited their mouth or throat, the victim might live for more than a day in this state and was left to crawl in the dirt for all to watch.






2. The Saw The saw may represent human ingenuity's darkest hour. The idea here is that when the victim is suspended upside down, most of the blood will go to the head. That is an important part of the process, you see, because as the torturers saw into the victim's crotch, all of the blood in the head will oxygenate the brain so that the victim will not pass out as one normally would under such excruciating pain. Typically, the saw would reach the victim's navel before unconsciousness would take hold -- sometimes as far as the midriff.






1. Breaking with the Wheel Okay, we've saved the most treacherous display for last. So, if you've had trouble with any of the above and want to turn back now, no one will think less of you for it................ You still here? You sick bastard. Okay, here we go... In terms of frequency used, the wheel was second only to hanging as the most common form of execution in Germany during the Middle Ages. First, the victim (usually naked) had each of his limbs spread apart and tied to the ground. However, wooden crosspieces were placed under each major joint such as the wrists, ankles, knees, hips and shoulders. The torturer would then smash each limb and joint with the heavy, iron-enhanced wheel. But that was just the beginning of the nightmare. Once the limbs were reduced to gelatinous appendages of mashed bones, blood and flesh, each arm and leg was braided into the spokes of the wheel and then hoisted upright for display. The agonizing victim would remain in this position for days as crows and insects feasted on him or her until death.

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"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend." --Alexander Hamilton

Oh dear God phil!

Umm getting back on topic, it occured to me that the CIA was formed by you know who...

So could we draw some posts from the "movers and shakers" thread to show the links between Rome and the CIA and its formation, and while the direct connection to the use of "waterboarding" may be elusive, I have little doubt as to where it eminated from within the "corporate culture" and I think we can be pretty darn certain that they've done it with more than just 3 detainees..

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On the 11th day, of every monthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9nR...irdstage%2Ehtm
http://truthaction.org/

No doubt Rob! One cannot even be a CIA Director unless they are a Sovereign Knight of Malta or a Jesuit! Check the list of CIA Directors and check it twice and you will find that each and every one of them, at least since 1947, has this "scarlet thread" in common! They have to belong to one of the Secret Orders of Rome, in some way or another! Which is why they use the old Roman Catholic torture devices that they do! you will also find that all Ambassadors cannot even get their position unless they belong to one of Romes Secret Societies! they have "Duplicity" built in; They report to their Masters in America, as well as those of Rome. They are double agents through and through.

Torture is simply wrong, and have so many times talked to other Americans till I am blue in my face trying to convince them how evil it is. You want to know whats truly scary Rob? Is that no 2 minute presentation of mine, has ever made much of a dent in their perceptions or opinions of this! Although I have never really tried it with pictures as I do with 911.

They use these devices because they belong to the dark side, the synagogue of Satan! It's about that simple! Only a person possessed with the spirits of darkness could ever use these devices on another human being!

Cheers-
Phil

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"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend." --Alexander Hamilton

What horrifies me phil, is that when I look deep within, I believe that there is a part of me, and of all humans, which uhh, I don't know how to describe it, but let's just say there's a dark part of us which the devil loves to hijack. I imagine those CIA guys doing this, and pouring water all over the victim, and frankley, it matters not what the terrorist himself has done, they are still a victim in these instances, and I would imagine that they enjoy it, just like all those pics from Abu Graib.. They get off on it, on doing the devil's work.

__________________
On the 11th day, of every monthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9nR...irdstage%2Ehtm
http://truthaction.org/

Very interesting and disturbing posts guys. Phil is right, if people can not see the inherent evil that manifests itself in Rome after looking at all of these hideous devices of the devil, nothing will make them see the truth. I am ashamed to have been indoctrinated with this Catholic disease. But just because it was forced on me, doesnt mean I had to accept it and its rigid teachings. I think to be honest the fact that it was forced on me so much is why I gained such a great disdain for the RCC. Only within these last several years have all of my unsettled feelings about the RCC been confirmed thanks to the research and enlightenment found here, in Phil's living room!


Duc

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So much poison in power, the principals get left out.
So much mind on the matter, the spirit gets forgotten about.

Grand Designs - Rush

Now in the news

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/det...nterrogations/

There is no way that Holder can follow the law and not indict them for war crimes.

__________________
On the 11th day, of every monthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9nR...irdstage%2Ehtm
http://truthaction.org/

In an interview with Larry King recently, Jesse Ventura told King, "give me a water-board,one hour and Dick Cheney,and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders. According to Ventura, water-boarding is part of Navy Seal training and he knows what it feels like to be water-boarded.Imagine the information we could get out of ol' Dickie boy if he were water-boarded.

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