Waterboarded Logic
One side argues that waterboarding is torture, therefore, we must ban it. The other side argues that waterboarding is definitely not torture, because we need it.
To both sides of the debate: would it kill you to consider the possibility that waterboarding is torture, but we need it anyway? We shouldn’t be debating whether Khalid Sheik Mohammed was or wasn’t tortured. Instead, let’s debate whether it was better that (1) Khalid Sheik Mohammed be tortured or (2) Library Tower go the way of the World Trade Center. Those are the choices.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Thank you.
I put it in even simpler terms: waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was obviously the right thing to do. Any set of principles that comes to a different conclusion is obviously flawed, and needs to be rethought.
Ditto for the USA entering WW2. Instead of arguing from first principles whether it was or wasn’t the right thing to do, the correct way to go about it is to accept that it clearly was right, and any set of principles that doesn’t reach that conclusion is therefore wrong.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Ahhh, but you’ve missed something: we couldn’t know that KSM would give any useful information due to waterboarding until we had already done it, so if we hadn’t gotten the information out of him, and the Library Tower gone the same way as the WTC, we’d never know that we would have gotten the information to prevent it had we waterboarded.
Yes, the argument is circular, but that makes it no less valid.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
No, Dana, they knew he had useful information before they waterboarded him. That’s why they did it. Given who he was, it was impossible for him not to have useful information; the only problem was extracting it from him, and – all other methods having failed – they resorted to this extreme measure.
The same goes for the other two people who were waterboarded. If it was being done on spec, it would surely have been done to a whole lot more than three people.
November 9th, 2007 at 7:27 am
I’ve never heard anyone argue that waterboarding is not torture “because we need it”. That sounds like a strawman.
I’ve argued that waterboarding is not torture because it isn’t comparable to the actions that we normally associate with torture. There is no maiming or even severe pain (lots of terror but minor pain). This just doesn’t compare to what we think of as real torture, things such as severe beatings, gouging out eyes, cutting off body parts, electrocution, etc. Given a choice between any of those things or waterboarding, which would you chose?
November 10th, 2007 at 4:10 am
Xrlq, don’t you think that crushing someone’s nuts with a pair of pliers deserves to be called something a little more serious than holding a wet rag over someones face to make them feel like they are drowning?
(did you delete my previous comment?)
November 11th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
DR, if you haven’t heard the “straw” argument, you haven’t been paying much attention. How often do you hear anyone opine at length about how waterboarding isn’t torture, and not bring up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? KSM is highly relevant to the question of whether we should waterboard or not, but he’s completely irrelevant as to whether or not it is torture. So why does he always come up in that context?
As to waterboarding vs. physical maiming, I agree that the two are different but that doesn’t prove that waterboarding isn’t torture. At most, it proves that some forms of torture are more extreme than others. Arguably, it doesn’t even do that, as physical maiming is a separate category from torture altogether. Either can exist without the other.
Last and least, no, I didn’t delete anything. Both messages went to moderation. Future messages by you should go right through.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:11 am
X, there are three different orthogonal positions that are often conflated in these arguments:
(1) waterboarding is sometimes justified
(2) waterboarding is torture
(3) torture is sometimes justified
People have several different combinations of opinions on these three assertions. I suggest that due to the conflations of these three arguments, you mistakenly thought that the references to KSM were about 2 when they were actually about 1.
Personally, I agree with all three but consider torture a much higher level of violence than mere harsh interrogation such as waterboarding and therefore much more difficult to justify. I would happily subject every single illegal combatant to waterboarding just in case they know something useful. I just don’t think that causing brief pain and terror is that big a deal once you have already deprived a person of their liberty and privacy. Frankly, I think I would rather be waterboarded for a couple of minutes than to spend a month in a high-security prison.
Torture I would reserve for cases where I had a very high level of evidence both that the prisoner was an especially evil bastard and that he knew something that could save lives. And even then, only if hash interrogation failed to get the information needed to save those in danger.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I thought waterboarding was to leave some one to drown in a sinking car!