US soldier waterboards his 4-year-old daughter for not reciting alphabet

Joshua Tabor, a 27-year-old Army sergeant who served in Iraq for 15 months, was restricted to his Washington state military base after being accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she refused to recite her ABCs. (via Andrew Sullivan)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

Ah, yes. He is a soldier and an Iraqi war veteran. That MUST be the reason. Now, if we could just find similar, simple, cut-and-dried reasons for the millions of other child abusers out there, life would be wonderful. Bonus points if the reasons reinforce our pre-existing views.

It amuses the hell out of me that the same people who cite “correlation does not imply causation” to refute opinions they disagree with, instantly toss the concept in the toilet when it will allow them to spout righteous indignation of their own.
benher

I suppose we could consider diverting some federal spending from secret torture facilities to, say, education and kill two birds with one stone.
Marcel

“This girl is terrified of water and that’s why he said he did it [this way],”

…
Stefan Jones

I guess there’s no age limit on fraternity hazing pranks.
weeklyrob

Dunking a kid in a sink full of water isn’t waterboarding. It is abuse, of course, but I don’t see how it’s waterboarding. If he weren’t a soldier, they’d just call it abuse.
- Felton
  
  Or maybe “attempted drowning.”
- joeposts
  
  It may differ from the CIA-approved method of drowning people, but it sounds awful similar:
  
  “Tabor would sit the girl on the edge of the bathroom sink and hold her head down until it was nearly submerged in water, dunking her if she refused to recite the alphabet”
  
  The only real difference is that he doesn’t pour water down her throat or gag her. Plus he apparently uses hot water. What a fucker.
  
  Though I guess if Sean Hannity et al don’t think this is torture, perhaps it is an appropriate disciplinary technique. Who are us bleeding-heart types to judge?
  - weeklyrob
    
    If the article is accurate, then all we really know is that he dunked the girl under water. We don’t know whether he HELD her under water, for example, or just dunked her once and let her back up immediately, then 5 minutes later did it again.
    
    It’s not nice. She didn’t like it (and has the bruises to show for it), but it might not be what lots of people seem to assume it is.
    
    It makes a difference, because the assumption from people who don’t know a thing is that his behavior is a direct result of the US involvement in Iraq and torture.
    
    Since that may not be true (he could have joined the service BECAUSE he’s violent), I’d hate to cry wolf just to have the torture lovers crow when it’s not.
- arikol
  
  @weeklyrob #3
  
  “Stancil said he is not sure whether Tabor actually ran the water over the girl’s face, a move that would force a gag reflex. His girlfriend reported having “heard the water running” and said that Tabor had an “anger management problem,” Stancil said.”
  
  Torture and abuse either way (drowning is not fun), but he may have been using waterboarding techniques based on the above.
gbmbg

Kind of makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.
blueelm

Child abuse. I think it’s probably tangential that he was a soldier, perhaps it influenced his method of abuse. It’s not as if soldiers are the only people who have heard of waterboarding. The fact that he states that he chose water because the child was already afraid of it. This is just a sadist. He sounds as if he likes torturing people. It’s sad the child was in his custody at all.

I’m not in a mind to excuse the behavior of a sadistic child-torturer because he was exposed to the horrors of war. I know too many soldiers who wouldn’t half drown a child to think that. I also know a lot of people with PTSD. I have it myself for one.

Sorry, but PTSD doesn’t make you methodically select a way to torture a 4 year old child. It just doesn’t. It can contribute to senseless bursts of anger and thus to possible bursts of violence it is true. But this action doesn’t suggest a burst of rage, it suggests a person who put time and thought into how to hurt a child as badly as possible while leaving few marks.
Anonymous

This is clear indication that this man (the army sergeant) is suffering from some kind of post-traumatic mental disorder and should be placed in rehabilitative care.
JonStewartMill

Recruiters like to say that one’s Army training can be used in civilian life, but I don’t think they have this in mind.
Anonymous

This kind of makes you wonder what psychological horrors we are bringing home from our wars.
Anonymous

he sounds like a seriously damaged individual – I wonder his actions were as a result of his service?
Nelson.C

Yeah, let’s not get into another frigging argument about what constitutes waterboarding and what doesn’t, and whether proper waterboarding is actually torture, never mind its lesser variants.

Let’s talk about the normalisation of violent solutions to social problems instead, hmm? Or PTSD. Or The Hurt Locker.
chgoliz

weeklyrob @ #24 wrote:

If the article is accurate, then all we really know is that he dunked the girl under water. We don’t know whether he HELD her under water, for example, or just dunked her once and let her back up immediately, then 5 minutes later did it again.

It’s not nice. She didn’t like it (and has the bruises to show for it), but it might not be what lots of people seem to assume it is.

Lots of people here assume it is child abuse. You’re going to have to explain how you think they’re wrong.
- weeklyrob
  
  “Lots of people here assume it is child abuse. You’re going to have to explain how you think they’re wrong.”
  
  I didn’t say it’s not child abuse. In fact, the third comment on this post is mine saying that is abuse. I won’t bother saying what I AM saying, since I already said it.
Anonymous

The fact that he only got $10K bail and was released( yeah, he is confined to his military base, BFD… ) shows a distinct lack of brain power in the court that handled this. We are talking about the violent abuse of a very young child. That, and the report says he was walking around the neighborhood threatening to smash windows. Sounds like just the kind of guy that would go on a shooting rampage, not to mention the very real chance of drowning and killing the child.

I’m all for due process and such, but this is not an ambiguous situation, where there is doubt about the accused’s actions. There were multiple witnesses to his behavior, victim testimony with clear signs of abuse, and finally, a free admission of guilt. Sure, give him a fair trial, but keep him in either a jail cell, or a psychiatric lock-up where he belongs.
Anonymous

republicans would argue that the kid did learn her ABCs as a result, so ends justifies means.
Anonymous

A child was killed in Utah after being punished with ice water dunking in a local restaurant by a family member.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695196645,00.html
chgoliz

Gallows humor seems the only way to get through reading a story like this.
eZee

didnt know what the F “waterboarding meant”, a quick google search later and i am horrified at what this monster did to that poor little girl.

SICKO
hp h gts t b smns btch n jl
BSR

Somewhere in Wyoming, Dick Cheney is sneering as he marks his Parent of the Year ballot.
andreinla

War is madness. Is it a wonder it breeds insanity?
AlenShapiro

More Gallows Humor…

Boot camp take-home assignment?

I’m truly horrified by this BTW.
lyd

The conjecture and sensationalism seems pretty thick and deep in here to me.