Jeff Tweedy of Wilco wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday about his life-long battle with migraines, depression, and anxiety. Though I have never suffered headaches in my life, I completely understand what it’s like to vomit for 12 hours at a time. In my case it was due to anxiety, though for some years I laboured under the misconception that it was an ulcer.

One of the more impacting passages from his piece, for me anyway, was…

“I’m sure there were misperceptions about my condition. You know, seeing a rock musician vomit on the side of the stage, I’m sure people thought I was completely out of my mind on drugs or strung out.”

Prior to my diagnosis, and getting on the proper medication, many of you might recall images of me looking as if I was akin to a skeleton. I had been rail-thin my whole life, rarely ate, and never quite understood why. Drugs have never been a factor in my life, and for ten years, between the ages of 20 and 30, I didn’t drink. I was thin because of the affects of intense mania, though wouldn’t figure that out until I was properly diagnosed. My mood swings were also a result of my condition, but that didn’t stop a lot of people from thinking that I was a drug user.

At one point in my life I weighed a mere 134 pounds. Standing six feet tall, that’s extremely thin. I now weigh 180 lbs, but even my gaining weight didn’t stop some from claiming that I was ‘getting fat’. It was, and is, somewhat of a no win situation with regards to public perception.

I commend Tweedy for being so open about his problems. Besides being one of the best songwriters of my generation, in my opinion anyway, it’s good to know that he’s also courageous enough to speak publicly about his experiences.

It’s been a question in the US for some time now – is waterboarding a form of torture? The Bush administration claims that it isn’t. The former US Attorney General claimed that it wasn’t. The newly confirmed US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, claimed that he wasn’t even aware of what it was during his confirmation hearing – and this is a man that has presided over several high-profile terror trials.

In truth, waterboarding is a practice that dates back centuries, to the Spanish Inquisition in fact, if not before. The Gestapo and the Japanese used it during the Second World War – bizarrely, it was, at that time, considered a form of torture. The practice involves the simulation of drowning a person in hopes of eliciting information. Of course, as countless studies have shown, the use of torture doesn’t commonly result in the production of useful information, rather anything that will simply make the torture of that person stop. The results of waterboarding are no different.

Despite the current ambiguity of the US position regarding its use, not to mention how those being waterboarded have been legally classified, the practice is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States claims to subscribe. At least, that is, when it suits them.

Put another way – were an American operative to be, for example, captured inside Iran and waterboarded by the Iranians, how do you think it would then be defined by the United States? As torture? Or just a routine part of questioning? According to Senator John McCain, who is a Republican Presidential hopeful, and also spent years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, waterboarding is a form of torture. In fact, he claimed it to be “no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank”.

Let’s take a look at a little history regarding the United States and waterboarding courtesy of the Washington Post…

“On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a front-page photograph of a U.S. soldier supervising the questioning of a captured North Vietnamese soldier who is being held down as water was poured on his face while his nose and mouth were covered by a cloth. The picture, taken four days earlier near Da Nang, had a caption that said the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.”

The article said the practice was “fairly common” in part because “those who practice it say it combines the advantages of being unpleasant enough to make people talk while still not causing permanent injury.”

The picture reportedly led to an Army investigation.

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he said.

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation — July 1963,” outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. “Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role,” the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of “touchless torture” until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presented “basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation.” When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that “the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain.”

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, “they stopped using it because it hurt morale.”

Torture is not alone defined by the physical abuse of a person. It is defined as the conduct of an individual with the intent of imposing great physical or mental suffering or anxiety on another. Note that ‘mental suffering or anxiety’ is also included in the definition.

For those that don’t think that this is a serious issue, former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld might disagree…

“October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

“The filing of this French case against Rumsfeld demonstrates that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide. A torturer is an enemy of all humankind,” said CCR President Michael Ratner.

“France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute Rumsfeld’s accountability for crimes of torture in Guantanamo and Iraq. France has no choice but to open an investigation if an alleged torturer is on its territory. I hope that the fight against impunity will not be sacrificed in the name of politics. We call on France to refuse to be a safe haven for criminals.” said FIDH President Souhayr Belhassen.

“We want to combat impunity and therefore demand a judicial investigation and a criminal prosecution wherever there is jurisdiction over the torture incidents,” said ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck.

“That a criminal State representative should benefit from impunity is always unacceptable. Because the USA is the super power of the beginning of this century and, above all, because it is a democracy, the impunity of Donald Rumsfeld is even more insufferable than that of a Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic”, underlined Jean-Pierre Dubois, LDH President.”

The irony, of course, is that even though Mr. Rumsfeld is no longer a member of the US government, were he to actually be arrested in France or Germany - where such charges have been filed - the reaction of the United States would be swift and severe. Of course, Mr. Sarkozy’s government would never tolerate it for obvious political reasons, which, to me, is simply aiding and abetting after the fact. Donald Rumsfeld is a private citizen now, not a member of government, and thus, in France, not to mention Canada, subject to laws pertaining to war crimes.

Unfortunately, when you were once a member of the government of the world’s foremost military power, one that refuses to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court to spare its own from criminal prosecution, there’s little chance that you’ll ever be faced with answering for anything.

But that is not to say that there aren’t those in the United States that completely disagree with the government’s position on waterboarding – only that if they happen to be in a position to have their opinion heard at the federal level they’re simply shuffled off.

In 2004, acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin was so concerned about the waterboarding issued that he volunteered to undergo the procedure so that he could experience it for himself. And while he knew that he would not die, and that nothing harmful would be allowed to happen to him, he claimed after the fact that the procedure ‘clearly simulated drowning’. While working on a memo regarding tighter controls being implemented over interrogation techniques, Levin was dismissed when Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General…

The horrible truth is that the issue of waterboarding is simply the tip of the iceberg. In comparison to the abuse suffered by those that have been rendered by the United States to countries in which torture practices are commonplace, or to security forces who are known to torture, waterboarding may be the least of their concerns. What occurs at the hands of others has been reported at being worse in many cases, and as far as Black Sites are concerned, what occurs at them remains a mystery.

In the midst of all of this Paris Hilton speculation it is easy to jump to conclusions. Obviously, given her popularity and wealth, it’s easy to see why the majority would condemn her of late, myself included. Make no mistake, if her mysterious medical condition is simply stress caused by her inability to deal with the fact that she has to do jail time, then I’m not all that sympathetic, though will say that her case has been used, as have many others, as a showcase for lawyers and judges and other officials who, even if in a small way, are enjoying their 15 minutes in the spotlight.

But thinking on it last night I began to ponder whether there might actually be something psychologically wrong with this girl, something that has gone largely overlooked in her life, and something that she has used her lifestyle in an attempt to suppress. Being that I suffer from bipolarity and wasn’t actually diagnosed with it until my mid thirties, one cannot discount the possibility that Hilton could be suffering from manic episodes due to the situation, one which is only amplified by her popularity. Speaking for myself, enduring a full blown manic episode is worse than anything I have ever experienced, spinal taps included. I can only imagine how much more terrifying one would be within the confines of a jail.

Until the truth is divulged as to what her condition is, I’m not going to bother commenting on this subject further from the standpoint of celebrity inequality et all. Because the truth is, this girl, given the life that she has led, and despite her wealth and popularity, which could have played significant factors in the formation of mental illness or strife, should be given the benefit of the doubt if she is indeed in need of psychological assistance. Because such things are not limited to those with nothing, or those that are not in the spotlight. If anything, increased anxiety can come from having to portray oneself as something on a daily basis, as if trapped in a never ending cycle from which escape seems impossible. That is not to say that her actions with regards to breaking the law are excusable, not at all. But that if we are to afford others the benefit of the doubt, then I believe she should be afforded the same accommodation.

I don’t know. Perhaps, given the possibility of an anxiety disorder or something else, I am somewhat more forgiving given my own personal experiences. That said, I’m going to remove my former posts and wait until more information is made available until commenting further, if at all.