To some extent, the debate over counterterrorism has jelled around the issue of “torture,” with waterboarding as the paradigm-case. In general, opponents of “torture” are opponents of counterterrorism. For them, the real enemy isn’t militant Islam, but the Bush administration, or American corporations. “Torture” is simply a marketable way of framing their opposition to counterterrorism.
(As a rule, the opponents occupy the far left, but, unfortunately, outbreaks of Bush Derangement Syndrome have also be reported to infect certain pockets on the far right. Like the movie 28 Weeks Later, lunacy is a communicable disease.)
If they were really opposed to torture, they would also oppose abortion. If they were really opposed to torture, they would redirect their vociferous opposition to countries that practice real, bona fide torture. So torture is just a stalking horse to camouflage their actual opposition to counterterrorism in general—with special reference to American foreign policy.
Opponents of torture want to outlaw torture, but they don’t want to define it. This, of itself, is quite perverse. Nothing could be more Kafkaesque than to penalize an offender for an indefinable crime.
As is also typical in liberal discourse, there is no room for rational debate. Liberals prefer adjectives to arguments. It comes down to assigning the preferred label to the practice, whether it’s “racist,” “homophobic,” “torture,” &c. Once the correct label is assigned, that’s the end of all discussion. To actually debate the merits of the issue is out of the question.
When interviewing a witness or nominee, the sole purpose of the exercise is to maneuver him into admitting to a practice to which they can automatically affix the damning adjective or noun. From this admission there is no pardon or reprieve.
Because they refuse to define torture, they fall back on picturesque examples of “torture.” They can’t tell you what it is, but they can show you what it is.
At present, the showcase example is waterboarding. They treat waterboarding as a synonym or hendiadys for torture. For them, this epitomizes everything that is unspeakably wrong with “torture.” How it subverts American values. Subverts everything we stand for as a nation. Lowers us to the level of our enemies.
This technique illustrates beyond all possible contention or confutation the moral superiority of Democrats over Republicans. End of story.
So what, exactly, is so bad about waterboarding? Here are two representative explanations:
According to the Times, a secret memo issued by Administration lawyers authorized the C.I.A. to use novel interrogation methods—including “water-boarding,” in which a suspect is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns. Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation, and he argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said. One patient couldn’t take showers, and panicked when it rained. “The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,” he said.
For instance, there has been considerable press attention to a tactic called "waterboarding," where a prisoner is restrained and blindfolded while an interrogator pours water on his face and into his mouth--causing the prisoner to believe he is being drowned. He isn't, of course; there is no intention to injure him physically. But if you gave people who have suffered abuse as prisoners a choice between a beating and a mock execution, many, including me, would choose a beating. The effects of most beatings heal. The memory of an execution will haunt someone for a very long time and damage his or her psyche in ways that may never heal. In my view, to make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture, very exquisite torture.
So that, my fellow Americans, is why we should never succumb to the immoral temptation of allowing the use of waterboarding to extract information from a terrorist which could prevent the mass murder of our citizens. The “victimized” terrorist would be “traumatized” by the experience. . He’d never take another shower. Rain would trigger “panic” attacks. In sum, he would suffer incurable “psychic” damage. Didn’t you know that a simulated death is a fate worse than death?