I'm sorry, but if you waterboard someone 183 times in a month, you are nothing but one sick fucker

183 times?

In ONE MONTH?

According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

On page 37 of the OLC memo, in a passage discussing the differences between SERE techniques and the torture used with detainees, the memo explains:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

Note, the information comes from the CIA IG report which, in the case of Abu Zubaydah, is based on having viewed the torture tapes as well as other materials. So this is presumably a number that was once backed up by video evidence.

The same OLC memo passage explains how the CIA might manage to waterboard these men so many times in one month each (though even with these chilling numbers, the CIA's math doesn't add up).

...where authorized, it may be used for two "sessions" per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water appliaction. See id. at 42. Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period.

So: two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you'd need 18 applications in a day. Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you've waterboarded 90 times--still just half of what they did to KSM.

The CIA wants you to believe waterboarding is effective. Yet somehow, it took them 183 applications of the waterboard in a one month period to get what they claimed was cooperation out of KSM.

That doesn't sound very effective to me.

Nor to me. In fact, you almost have to have a certain grudging respect for anyone who can withstand that kind of waterboarding (OK, cue the wingnuts popping into the comments calling me a terrorist sympathizer -- especially you guys calling for secession and violent overthrow of the president).

This is a stain on this nation that will never be washed clean. We are supposed to be better than this. We are supposed to be about accountability. We are supposed to be the beacon of justice and righteousness, and yet we have allowed ourselves to be led by men of unfathomable thuggishness and perversity. We looked the other way even though we knew what they were doing. And now we are led by a man who knows full well what has been done, and says that we should not look back, but instead look forward. Does the kid who gets caught with a bag of pot get to look forward? Or the shoplifter? Or the guy who robs the gas station? Why do we have to look forward and ignore what has been done?

We were once a great nation. We became a nation of madmen -- frightened and venal lunatics who have forgotten what we are supposed to be; what we fancy ourselves to be. We no longer care. We are no longer human. And as long as the men who brought us to this depraved state in the name of illusory safety while they allowed the real dangers to continue to accumulate, there is nothing that will ever cleanse this stain from our national soul.

We are a lost people.