Dear Senator  Leahy,

Have you ever almost  drowned? 

I lived on Guam for a few years when I was a kid and I fell in love  with the ocean.  I helped my father build a salt water aquarium and we spent  many hours snorkeling inside of Guam’s  incredible reef.  The water is mostly about waist deep and there is sharp coral  as well as very toxic fish and shell fish, so the norm is to wear sneakers.  But  one time we decided to take a short cut across a deep swimming area.  At some  point I began to struggle – I wasn’t able to keep the sneakers up.   I kept  kicking, but wasn’t making any progress.  I could see the hospital on a point  over the beach, but then it started to spin.  At that point I had no ability to  even consider something like kicking my shoes off.  My father and a stranger  whose name I never learned pulled me out.  I was still  breathing. 

Simulated drowning is torture.  No  one who can’t categorically say that should ever be our Attorney  General. 

Today on VPR I’m hearing from a  lawyer for about 50 Guantanamo detainees.  He’s talking about a  British national who we spirited off to Morocco for 18 months where the  torture included slicing his genitals with a razor blade.  After that he was  sent to a very dark jail in Afghanistan.  If this is what we –  America – are, we are  despicable. 

Please do not allow anyone to become  Attorney General who will not put a stop to this  barbarism. 

Sincerely,

Steve  Schlipf