That'll Teach 'Em

We've all heard the waterboarding stories; it isn't torture, says the likes of Hellhound Dick Cheney, but a necessary means to garner information from someone unwilling to talk freely. Some of us think it is torture, and that the United Sates should never use it; others think we use any means necessary to get information.

Which, apparently, is how Joshua Tabor feels, because he used it to get answers; from his four-year-old daughter.

Tabor admitted to police that he had used the CIA torture technique because his child was unable to recite the alphabet and it made him angry. He told them that as his daughter "squirmed" to get away, he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline. Tabor, who had just been awarded primary custody of his daughter a month earlier, admitted that he'd chosen this particular punishment because his daughter was terrified of water.

He was arrested after neighbors reported seeing him walking down their streets near his Tacoma, Washington home, wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows. When police went to his home they discovered the alleged waterboarding incident after speaking to his girlfriend. She told them about the alleged torture and Tabor's daughter was found cowering in a closet, with bruises on her back and scratches on her neck and throat.

Asked how she got the bruises, she said: 'Daddy did it.'

When we use torture to gather information, for any reason, we are also teaching torture, and then it takes just one person, for whatever reason, to apply it to his daily life.

Torturing children.