One man’s waterboarding is another man’s torture.

Most people would consider simulated drowning -- otherwise known as waterboarding -- to be a form of torture. What, besides torture, could describe the combination of waterboarding with head-slapping and exposure to frigid temperatures? President George Bush disagrees.

“This government does not torture people,” he insisted last week, after reports emerged that in 2005, the U.S. Justice Department had secretly endorsed such painful interrogation techniques. Claiming that highly trained individuals from the CIA conducted the interrogation of terrorism suspects in keeping with U.S. and international law, Bush offered that it was all done for the sake of protecting the American people.