Liliputin -2697

There is an undisputable fact that personally Dick Cheney  has tirelessly carried water to operators of water-boarding machines from the very beginning of their usage ... "
Senator Dianne Feinstein

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carry water for (someone)
 (redirected from carry water for)

carry water for (someone)

1. To serve, assist, or perform menial or difficult tasks for some person, group, or organization.
Internships are a great way to gain practical work experience, but you'll be the one carrying water for the company while you're there.

Immigrant workers are most often the ones who carry water for farm owners and construction firms.

2. To support a person, organization, or cause that one would not in reality endorse, as due to pressure, force, or pragmatic reasons.
Once elected to congress, I soon realized that you must carry water for many groups that run contrary to your own personal politics.

Though I personally found him repugnant, I carried water for him for two years because I thought it would open up many career opportunities.

See also: carry, water

adjective: menial

(of work) not requiring much skill and lacking prestige.


Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.


carry (someone's) water

To support someone, especially in an submissive or uncritical manner.



Waterboarding
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Etymology

While the technique has been used in various forms for centuries,[26] the term water board was recorded first in a 1976 UPI report: "A Navy spokesman admitted use of the 'water board' torture ... to 'convince each trainee that he won't be able to physically resist what an enemy would do to him.'" The verb-noun waterboarding dates from 2004.[8] First appearance of the term in the mass media was in a New York Times article on 13 May 2004:


In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as 'water boarding', in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.[8][27][28]

U.S. attorney Alan Dershowitz is reported to have shortened the term to a single word in a Boston Globe article two days later: "After all, the administration did approve rough interrogation methods for some high valued detainees. These included waterboarding, in which a detainee is pushed under water and made to believe he will drown unless he provides information, as well as sensory deprivation, painful stress positions, and simulated dog attacks".[29] Dershowitz later told the New York Times columnist William Safire that, "when I first used the word, nobody knew what it meant."[8]

Techniques using forcible drowning to extract information had hitherto been referred to as "water torture", "water treatment", "water cure" or simply "torture".[8][28]

Professor Darius Rejali of Reed College, author of Torture and Democracy (2007), speculates that the term waterboarding probably has its origin in the need for a euphemism.


There is a special vocabulary for torture. When people use tortures that are old, they rename them and alter them a wee bit. They invent slightly new words to mask the similarities. This creates an inside club, especially important in work where secrecy matters. Waterboarding is clearly a jailhouse joke. It refers to surfboarding"– a word found as early as 1929– "they are attaching somebody to a board and helping them surf. Torturers create names that are funny to them."[8]

Webster's Dictionary first included the term in 2009: "[A]n interrogation technique in which water is forced into a detainee's mouth and nose so as to induce the sensation of drowning."[30]


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The United States should bring back enhanced interrogation techniques and "go back and study them and learn," according to former vice president Dick Cheney on Thursday. Cheney's comments came as President Donald Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, faced questions over her integral role in a program many believed was torture of suspected terrorists.

Cheney, who served under President George W. Bush and created an unprecedented outsized role for himself in the administration, pushed for the interrogation programs to return during an interview with Fox Business.

"If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs," Cheney said. "I'd have them active and ready to go, and I'd go back and study them and learn."

The Republican Cheney also denied the programs were torture and said critics of the programs were attempting to "rewrite history." The program was carried out at secret prisons around the world by the CIA between 2002 and 2008, and included tactics such as waterboarding.

"I think the techniques we used were not torture. A lot of people try to call it that, but it wasn't deemed torture at the time," Cheney said. "People want to go back and try to rewrite history, but if it were my call, I'd do it again."

While Cheney might disagree, the United Nations stated in January 2017 that waterboarding indeed amounted to torture.

Cheney also endorsed Haspel, who faced her first confirmation hearing Wednesday.

"I think she'd be a great CIA director," Cheney said. "I think she's done a great job in terms of the career she's built, and the people I know at the agency are very enthusiastic about having one of their own, so to speak, in the driver's seat at the CIA."