I suppose because I'm Pro-Choice that I am automatically Pro-Torture because I demonstrate "lack of respect" for human life.... Capital Punishment, Non-Capital Punishment? Punishment fits the crime? I believe certain circumstances call for certain actions. Deliberate infliction of pain is very brutal and very savage and I dont even want to imagine alternate techniques to waterboarding.....my only line of thinking on it is (and it can change) for example if somehow an Al Qaeda pilot survived a 9-11 crash and he was detained within hours or days after the event, who the hell would want to grant him the the protection of "The US doesnt torture"? If Al Qaeda pilot is one of the 5 minutes in 5 years guys, I guess my barbaric Pro-choice stance prohibits me from having much sympathy towards a chief offender...
"Waterboarding" goes at least as far back as the Spanish Inquisition, "tortura del agua" was one of the methods to generate repent or confession. It was one of the favorites, along with some famous others that break limbs, tendons and ligaments (e.g., The Rack). Instead of calling it an “enhanced interrogation technique” and implying it is some new form of information gathering a CIA brilliant heads thought up. I wonder how public sentiment would be if we just called the tactic "torture from water" or “water torture” (direct translations) and credited the savvy truth generators within the Spanish Inquisition for its origin. John McCain was right on it saying of course “waterboarding” is torture, just because lasting physical damage is relatively rare doesn’t make something not torture. Heck, you could just convincingly tell/inform a prisoner if they don’t tell you what you want we will start dismembering their child/family members alive and send them evidence--I would still call that torture even though it is less physically harmful than “water torture”. Now if you want to discuss whether “torture” should be legally allowed for some military/intelligence circumstances, fine, but don’t quibble with silly parts like whether “waterboarding”, or “tortura del agua”, is a method of torture or not. Or course my view is giving the state license to torture and/or execute people is just a bad move for democracy and free peoples. Humans and human systems make errors and others will abuse power for the sake of gaining more without the consequences to others, and there are alternatives to keep the public safe without risking such errors and increasing the opportunities for and devastation of abuses. Now if some hotshot field agent tortures a terrorist and prevents others for getting killed or injured I certainly would be aghast about it (any more than I was about the prisoner who took out Jeffrey Dalmer), and might even consider the individual a hero (pending the circumstances). But again I don’t support having it condoned by the state is a good thing.
Oh, one last thought. If these guys were willing to fly themselves into a building, do you think simulated drowning would get real/useful information? Further, there are many cases of the Inquisition where people didn't repent or say what they were supposed to. People chose to be burned slowly alive to stick to what they believe in (where if they repented they got the mercy of being cut open 1st to bleed to death). Similar histories of people never caving in regard to being tortured (e.g., drawn and quartered) in England. Of course if one of these detainees is innocent, of course you can't get useful information either. So what is their proof of innocence--that no torture technique got the information the agent wanted. Well, not really even this, because like I said above, some people over history haven’t caved under any amount or torture. Don’t know if they are innocent and know nothing or merely extremely committed to their cause and won’t cave.
