FeedsIn Which Twisted World is Waterboarding Not Torture?
I saw this nonsense in the news, about Bush's move to get Mukasey confirmed quickly, and it brought me back to something that's been troubling me since the whole Mukasey waterboarding deal came up. Waterboarding is obviously torture.
So I said to Michael,
"Michael, is waterboarding torture?"
"I think so."
Well, Wikipedia thinks so, too.
Waterboarding is a form of torture[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] that consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water[11] and induce the sensation of drowning.
That's eleven citations in the first sentence! Certainly the highest number of citations I've ever seen on an assertion in the Wikipedia. And they're mostly pretty good, too: "more than 100 U.S. Law professors", the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and the U.S. Department of State. Pretty clear, "Waterboarding is a form of torture".
But that's not where the silliness ends - I took a peak at this United Nations Convention against Torture and cetera and saw that not only is the U.S. a member state (see the green countries in the picture?) but that two Americans are members of the current Committee against Torture: Claudio Grossman, Vice Chairman and Felice Gaer, Rapporteur.
And so I presented my evidence to Michael and asked again,
"Is waterboarding torture?"
"Yes."
And BINGO! That's all it would take for Mukasey to get confirmed as Attorney General. Isn't it refreshing that our incoming Attorney General responds to questions with the same ridiculous equivocation as the outgoing?
Yeah, I don't recall either.
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Comments from site editors have a darker background than comments from everybody else.We even sentenced a German POW to hard labor for waterboarding during WWII as a war crime. Interesting...
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Ah, how quickly we forget.
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While doing some interesting research I came across an article by Darius Rejali of Reed College Fame.
He had this to say:"In 1968, a soldier in the 1st Cavalry Division was court-martialed for waterboarding a prisoner in Vietnam. In fact, the practice was identified as a crime as early as 1901, when the Army judge advocate general court-martialed Maj. Edwin Glenn of the 5th U.S. Infantry for waterboarding, a technique he did not hesitate to call torture."
So we've even used the standard of waterboarding as torture to deal with our own soldiers, to interrogate enemies in a hostile country that was undergoing a massive insurgency/civil war.
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To be clear, you do research before you post a comment on our blog?
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I still don't understand why people don't use the best argument against the CIA's use of torture, which is simply that it does not work.
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People who get into the habit of torture -- that's what it is, a habit -- eventually no longer torture people to get information. They just start to enjoy what they are doing. It's a thrill to have so much power over another human being.
So I think one has to approach the prohibition of torture from every possible angle, remembering that utility is not the only reason, maybe not even the main reason, people behave the way they do.
The same logic applies to making war. People just do it, and continue doing it, and eventually forget how awful it all seemed to them in the beginning.
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I still don't understand why people don't use the best argument against the CIA's use of torture, which is simply that it does not work.
Because that's a tactical argument, not an ethical one. If it doesn't work, but it's OK to try, then the logical conclusion is that we should work harder to refine our tactics to find a way to make it work.
Instead, if it's just plain wrong, inhuman, and evil - then it doesn't matter if it works, or could be made to work. Then, we just don't.
Note that John McCain is the only one who makes the "it doesn't work" argument. He's trying to have it both ways - argue against it, while keeping faith with the right-wing wackos who want America to do everything to stop terrorists.
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Yes, but it is painfully evident that there are people in America willing to support a candidate that endorses inhuman tactics.
The argument that it is "just plain wrong, inhuman, and evil" will not work on everyone, and if there is avenue of argument that has a chance of changing the minds of that demographic, then I think it has some merit.
I see a parallel in my own opinion on the death penalty. I don't feel particularly moved by the state putting to death terrible people. But the argument of anti-death penalty activists that was most effective on me was the exceptionally flawed legal process that may happen to put an innocent person on the lethal injection table. It's for that reason--not necessarily moral reasons--that I don't endorse capital punishment.
So I think there is still a role for the "it doesn't work" argument, especially since essentially every expert that has studied torture will tell you so.
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There was a piece on November 3rd for NPR's All Things Considered featuring Reed College Professor Darius Rejali. Take a look here.
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From Jon Stewart:
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