When Torture Comes Home
Posted by onehundredflowers on February 10, 2010
This was originally posted on dailymail.co.uk.
U.S. soldier ‘waterboarded his own daughter, 4, because she couldn’t recite alphabet’
By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE
A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.
Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.
As his daughter ‘squirmed’ to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.
Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.
The practice of waterboarding was used by the CIA to break Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Detainees had water poured over their face until they feared they would drown. President Barack Obama has since outlawed the practice.
Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was arrested after being seen walking around his neighbourhood wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows.
Police discovered the alleged waterboarding when they went to his home in the Tacoma suburb of Yelm and spoke to his girlfriend.
She told them about the alleged torture and the terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.
Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: ‘Daddy did it.’
During a police interview Tabor allegedly admitted grabbing his daughter, placing her on the kitchen counter and submerging her face into a bowl of water.
Sergeant Rob Carlson said the punishment was carried out because the girl would not recite the alphabet.
Police have not revealed Tabor’s military service, but his base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tabor has been charged with assault and ordered to remain on his base and have no contact with his daughter or girlfriend, who has not been named. He is due to appear in court this week.
The girl has been taken into care. Her natural mother lives in Kansas but Tabor had been granted custody by a court.
Tell No Lies said
This is so awful and of course it is only one instance of a million cases of the blowback of empire. It reminds me of the scene in “Bowling for Columbine” where some guy is expressing astonishment wondering where the Trenchcoat Mafia kids got the idea that “violence solves anything.” The interview is conducted on the floor of a missile factory with an ICBM in the background.
Adrienne said
Here’s another of those million instances of this empire and the results on an entire society that has grown very used to the reigning attitude of complete brutality and inhumanity: Transit security guards of a major U.S. city who are paid to protect only property instead of people — and who are so callous that they can actually stand by and do absolutely nothing but watch when a young girl asks for their help, then gets attacked, kicked repeatedly in the head, and robbed.