From www.vastleft.com:

We’re not in Geneva anymore, folks. Without further commentary, consider this snapshot of today’s debased America…

After playing tape of Dick Cheney calling waterboarding a “no-brainer,” along with Tony Snow’s subsequent spin, Rita Cosby interviewed retired Marine and former “interrogator at a survival school” Bob Newman (video — Internet Explorer only):

Rita: How do you break it down, Bob?

Bob: Well, first of all it’s clear that the radio interviewer with the Vice President and the Vice President himself don’t even know what waterboarding is. It’s a very simple technique, it is not a dunk in the water. Imagine this, I place you the subject on your back in the supine position, and I tie you down to a board, maybe an ironing board or just a wide board of some sort, and you’re laying there, and your feet are up in the air, so you’re elevated like this, with your head down.

And there are two people that apply the technique, one is on one side of the subject’s head, the other is on the opposite side. One person holds usually a T-shirt, something that’s fairly permeable to water and stretches it over the subject’s mouth and nose. The person on the other side slowly pours water from a hose or a glass or a canteen, and it forms a pool of water and a semi-seal over the person’s mouth. And that water is slowly dribbled on there. That gives the impression of not being able to get your breath. You can get some air, but also a little water goes up the nose and into the mouth.

…It is definitely not torture. It is a mental trick. It is coercion using both physical and mental stress, but once somebody gets off the waterboard, and the average person might last twenty seconds before they become compliant to some level, which varies of course depending on the person. And then they’ll go back to their cell or their holding area, and they think, “I was just tricked.” And that’s what this is. It is a trick that plays upon a human’s most basic need of having that rather understandable desire for air.