I'd wondered that too, but I'm fairly sure his lawyer redacted the waterboarding idea from the "preferred disciplinary methods" section of the custody filing.
Judging by the circumstances it looks like he'd gone completely batshit crazy - good to see the US looking after the mental welfare of their soldiers so well.
But while I agree it's absolutely no excuse for what he's done. It's pretty clear he's mentally injured in a manner strongly consistent with PTSD and obviously was not getting proper care and follow-up from the organization directly responsible for the harm he suffered.
The bruising found on the 4 year old girl would lead one to believe this was not an isolated incident. If he found he snapped once then he could have found a safer living situation for his daughter while he underwent some counselling. But he didn't. Instead, he kept the little girl in a situation knowing that he could snap again. Having PTSD is okay. Abusing a child is not.
Furthermore, he waterboarded his child and then admitted that he did it because she is afraid of water. That sounds like he made a conscious decision to use the most psychologically damaging form of abuse that he could think of. Bruises heal. That little girl will need a hell of a lot of counselling to get past what her daddy did to her.
Nothing in the description of her injuries implies that the bruises are pre-existing. In fact, it sounded very consistent with bruises resulting from the incident itself. Of course, child abuse is very rarely a one-time event and there may have been a litany of such but we don't know nor can we assume it with any real validity. Basically, there's no previous "snap" to be traced from the article so there's no reason to think he knowingly and rationally left her in a dangerous situation.
Secondly, it's reported in the article that he did it to her because he was enraged over the alphabet issue. That kind of severely disproportionate anger response is textbook PTSD. Prior to this, he's probably been struggling with growing anger issues, a tendency to get more angry than he should or angry when he normally wouldn't but the truly scary part of mental illness is that one can only detect aberration if one has a baseline to compare it to and in your head, what's in your head IS the baseline.
As for choosing to use her greatest fear as the tool of his "punishment", that just strikes me as further evidence of his enraged state. You're surely not attempting to say he was making calm, rational and logical decisions during this event? He was merely acting with the same kind of cunning that makes us use words with similar harmful accuracy when we lose control of our lesser selves. We aren't smarter when we're enraged we're just better at hurting the perceived source of our anger.
As for the little girl, I truly hope she's young enough and resilient enough to move past this and if possible I'd wish her father be restored to a rational enough state that he will then have to live with the regret of doing such a horrible thing.
Not only is he fucking crazy and nobody that should ever be given custody of any child, ever, he's also pig-ignorant. He didn't waterboard his daughter (which requires you to place the victim on their back and pour water on their face); he just shoved her face into a bowl of water a few times.
The article makes it pretty clear that he propped her body up on the counter, dangled her head off the ledge, and forced it into water deep enough to make her choke.
That's your required elements for "waterboarding", right there - head down wrt rest of body, water provided to run into nose.
In their defense, crazy people who are unwilling to admit that their jokes have maybe gone too far don't make good parents.
Unfortunately, crazy people who are unwilling to admit that their jokes have maybe gone too far are a privileged class in western society, as long as their "crazy joke gone too far" mentions Christ.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 04:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 04:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 04:54 pm (UTC)Just.... wow.
Imagine what they did when she was slow on potty training.
What kind of evaluation fuck-up occurred that he won custody of his daughter 4 weeks ago? Or was this that fast onset kind of batshit fucking insane.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 06:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 05:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 05:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 06:07 pm (UTC)Washington is not Ohio, or Florida.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 07:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 07:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 07:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 10:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-09 06:33 am (UTC)On further thought, I suspect it will also turn out to be the fault of Libuhrul Judges somehow.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:21 am (UTC)But while I agree it's absolutely no excuse for what he's done. It's pretty clear he's mentally injured in a manner strongly consistent with PTSD and obviously was not getting proper care and follow-up from the organization directly responsible for the harm he suffered.
Not an excuse but definitely the root cause.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 02:03 am (UTC)Furthermore, he waterboarded his child and then admitted that he did it because she is afraid of water. That sounds like he made a conscious decision to use the most psychologically damaging form of abuse that he could think of. Bruises heal. That little girl will need a hell of a lot of counselling to get past what her daddy did to her.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 02:30 am (UTC)Secondly, it's reported in the article that he did it to her because he was enraged over the alphabet issue. That kind of severely disproportionate anger response is textbook PTSD. Prior to this, he's probably been struggling with growing anger issues, a tendency to get more angry than he should or angry when he normally wouldn't but the truly scary part of mental illness is that one can only detect aberration if one has a baseline to compare it to and in your head, what's in your head IS the baseline.
As for choosing to use her greatest fear as the tool of his "punishment", that just strikes me as further evidence of his enraged state. You're surely not attempting to say he was making calm, rational and logical decisions during this event? He was merely acting with the same kind of cunning that makes us use words with similar harmful accuracy when we lose control of our lesser selves. We aren't smarter when we're enraged we're just better at hurting the perceived source of our anger.
As for the little girl, I truly hope she's young enough and resilient enough to move past this and if possible I'd wish her father be restored to a rational enough state that he will then have to live with the regret of doing such a horrible thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:23 pm (UTC)That's your required elements for "waterboarding", right there - head down wrt rest of body, water provided to run into nose.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 09:52 pm (UTC)So he's just fucking crazy and an amazingly bad parent.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 11:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 11:21 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, crazy people who are unwilling to admit that their jokes have maybe gone too far are a privileged class in western society, as long as their "crazy joke gone too far" mentions Christ.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 11:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-09 01:00 am (UTC)