Waterboarding Isn’t Torture. There I Said It.
January 27th, 2008 . by glendeanIn this comment thread, Jeffraham Prestonian nearly lost it, when I told him that waterboarding was not torture. Well, let me take this opportunity to say it again. WATERBOARDING IS NOT TORTURE. Now I know that you guys are going to pull your little UN statements and international opinions out of your ass, and start spitting all over your monitor while you are typing ninety to nothing, but I don’t care. Waterboarding is a mind game, a very effective interrogation tool, used only on a select few really bad guys. Nobody is permanently harmed. The good thing about it is that it works. We don’t do it though because we are a bunch of sadists. We do it in order to obtain information to save lives, American lives that is.
Now I don’t support torture. I agree that torture is beneath us as Americans, but waterboarding is not torture and if scaring the hell out of a terrorist for a few seconds is going to save one American life, then I say do it and do it proudly.
What do you all think? Consider this comment thread a little online poll. Is waterboarding torture, and whether or not it is or isn’t, do you think that we should do it?
UPDATE: In a response to this post, Joe Powell sent me this link that offers a different point of view from an expert on the subject.
And the fact that our government has prosecuted both U.S. and foreign troops for performing it means it isn’t torture.
It was torture before the Cheney administration; it’s torture now.
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I guess we are the only people with an opinion JP. Tie goes to the poster though. I win.
Glen, how did we prosecute people for waterboarding under war crimes statutes when it isn’t torture?
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I don’t know. But why do we subject special forces trainees to water boarding, if it is torture? We wouldn’t yank off their fingernails and electrocute their testicles, would we? What McCain endured was torture. Cutting off somebody’s head with a dull knife is torture. Beating and raping prisoners is torture. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique, used on only a select few people. But since you think it is torture, do you think the other methods that Brian Ross mentions in the article linked above are torture?
But why do we subject special forces trainees to water boarding, if it is torture?
To teach them techniques on how to resist it. These troops give their consent, and there are medical personnel on hand to revive them (as it is claimed there is when enemy suspects (what else can they be called?) are subjected to it). The consent involved is a key component. They don’t have to subject themselves to this.
Enemy suspects have no such choice.
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They have a choice. They could talk before it happens.
They could talk before it happens.
You’re assuming they didn’t. They may have, and may have even been truthful, but it may not have been what the interrogators wanted to hear.
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The great thing about torture is that the tortured can eventually figure out what the interrogators want to hear, and they can hand over their neighbors, who may have owed them some money, and involve them in whatever nefarious plot necessary to make the interrogators stop the torture.
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I’m glad we don’t torture people though.
I’m glad we don’t torture people though.
At least you’re not pretending that we didn’t prosecute people for waterboarding in the past, Glen. You’re getting past denial, slowly, but surely.
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Don’t force me to agree with JP.
Don’t do it. You don’t have to.
When you take an intellectually dishonest position like, “waterboarding isn’t torture”, you leave me no alternative.
The real question is, “Is it in our national interest to torture detainees for valuable information and can we live with being a nation that does so?”
What’s the answer?
By the way, how is that an intellectually dishonest position?
I don’t know what the answer is. That what makes it an interesting topic. There are days when my opinion is, “Yeah, we waterboard. Yeah it’s torture. So what? The world is a harsh place. If you don’t like it, don’t fly airplanes into my buildings.”
Other days, I don’t feel that lives up to the ideal of what America is supposed to be.
From what I understand though, it is not done that often.
How many times would make it wrong?
Thats a good point. If it is wrong, then it should never be done. From what I have read about it though, it just seems like a tough interrogation method and more of a mind game, and according to some, it has been effective. But you are right, something wrong should never be done. I just don’t think its wrong.
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