Malcolm Nance

I was a part of the planning and attack package intelligence team for the strike against Syria in 1983 - in which we lost a pilot and had another one captured until Jesse Jackson got him out - and numerous other operations against Syria both before the Iraq war and during the insurgency.

For years before my Navy enlistment, I had studied the Soviet Union and the KGB's history of political intrigue in preparation for a career in intelligence.

Intelligence officers are a peculiar lot. Whether they are active or retired, their brains are wired for a completely different way of seeing the world around them.

I know waterboarding is torture because I have been on the giving and receiving end of the practice.

Waterboarding should never be used as an interrogation tool. It is beneath our values.

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually, the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.