Bush, Torture And Vietnam

In response to this post, a reader directs me to this arresting series of drawings made by a former Vietnam POW Mike McGrath. They detail how the Vietnamese tortured American soldiers and sailors. The depictions are almost identical to those now used by the Bush administration against terror suspects. The picture above shows a combination of a stress position, sleep deprivation and hypothermia, all used separately and in combination by the Bush-Cheney team.

Many men were handcuffed or tied to a stool as a means of slow torture. The POW sat in one position, day and night. Each time he would fall over, the guards would sit him upright. He was not allowed to sleep or rest.

Exhaustion and pain take their toll. When the POW agreed to cooperate with his captors and acquiesced to their demands, he would be removed. Here, I have pictured a guard named "Mouse," who liked to throw buckets of cold water on a man on cold winter nights.

The Bush torture program doesn't have to wait for cold winter nights. They use air-conditioning to freeze prisoners into submission.