Waterboarding is Torture
Christopher Hitchens, the Brit who’s always able to insult and entertain at the same time, decided that, in order to determine whether waterboarding constitutes torture, he had to undergo the procedure. The result? Hitchens has been traumatized and says that if there’s one thing clear to him it’s that if waterboarding isn’t torture, nothing is.
It goes without saying that I knew I could stop the process at any time, and that when it was all over I would be released into happy daylight rather than returned to a darkened cell. But it’s been well said that cowards die many times before their deaths, and it was difficult for me to completely forget the clause in the contract of indemnification that I had signed. This document (written by one who knew) stated revealingly:
“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body.
This obviously worried Hitchens a bit; the day before he was going to be tortured he went to sleep quite peacefully and calmly, but he woke up early the next morning, fearing that he would have one hell of a day… in a bad way.
I have to be opaque about exactly where I was later that day, but there came a moment when, sitting on a porch outside a remote house at the end of a winding country road, I was very gently yet firmly grabbed from behind, pulled to my feet, pinioned by my wrists (which were then cuffed to a belt), and cut off from the sunlight by having a black hood pulled over my face. I was then turned around a few times, I presume to assist in disorienting me, and led over some crunchy gravel into a darkened room. Well, mainly darkened: there were some oddly spaced bright lights that came as pinpoints through my hood. And some weird music assaulted my ears. (I’m no judge of these things, but I wouldn’t have expected former Special Forces types to be so fond of New Age techno-disco.) The outside world seemed very suddenly very distant indeed.
Arms already lost to me, I wasn’t able to flail as I was pushed onto a sloping board and positioned with my head lower than my heart. (That’s the main point: the angle can be slight or steep.) Then my legs were lashed together so that the board and I were one single and trussed unit. Not to bore you with my phobias, but if I don’t have at least two pillows I wake up with acid reflux and mild sleep apnea, so even a merely supine position makes me uneasy. And, to tell you something I had been keeping from myself as well as from my new experimental friends, I do have a fear of drowning that comes from a bad childhood moment on the Isle of Wight, when I got out of my depth. As a boy reading the climactic torture scene of 1984, where what is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world, I realize that somewhere in my version of that hideous chamber comes the moment when the wave washes over me. Not that that makes me special: I don’t know anyone who likes the idea of drowning. As mammals we may have originated in the ocean, but water has many ways of reminding us that when we are in it we are out of our element. In brief, when it comes to breathing, give me good old air every time.
You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.
Well, to cut a long story rather short; he didn’t last long. They only had to waterboard him for a couple of seconds, and he gave up. He quickly panicked and signaled to his interrogators that they should stop. This even though he knew he was going to be waterboarded, that he volunteered for it and that he knew that he could stop it whenever he wanted to. This says a lot about whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture.
Being the Brit he is, Hitchens was ashamed of himself…
And so then I said, with slightly more bravado than was justified, that I’d like to try it one more time. There was a paramedic present who checked my racing pulse and warned me about adrenaline rush. An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
Quite right.
Well, of course it’s torture. That’s the point of the whole thing.
The question shouldn’t be "Is waterboarding torture?", but "Under what circumstances can we use waterboarding or similar techniques?"
Perhaps for some torture is always and automatically excluded. I personally am not so sure…especially if there are lives at stake.
Yeah. Thing is, perhaps you guys shouldn’t have signed all kinds of treaties then. Since you did the question "under what circumstances" becomes mute.
Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t object to pulling out of a treaty if there was some clear and present danger. Like how we pulled out of the ABM treaty so we can defend our country from ICBMs.
There is no evidence that torture has ever been a reliable means for obtaining information that saved lives. In fact, most interrogators agree that establishing personal rapport is much more effective than inflicting pain. And the type of information we are seeking is almost never the Jack Bauer "ticking time bomb" scenario. It is rather about networks and processes of terrorist groups — something that is MUCH more effectively obtained over a period of time and detailed give-and-take discussions where torture is actually counterproductive.
Well, of course it’s torture.
If you don’t know the statutory definitions of same under US Code, you have no clue what you’re talking about. See 18 USC 2340.
perhaps you guys shouldn’t have signed all kinds of treaties then
The implementation of which is found in US Code. See 18 USC 2340.
There is no evidence that torture has ever been a reliable means for obtaining information that saved lives.
Reliable, sometimes. Highly reliable as compared to other methods, no. Information obtained that saved lives and disrupted terrorist plots, yes. Reason for waterboarding rather than going with more reliable methods that take longer–time pressure, not just "ticking time bomb" but vanishing opportunity gap to use obtainable information before opposition knowledge of the suspect’s capture makes it inoperative. Moral justification? None really, just those rationalizations. Pragmatic justifications, yes.
Number of known waterboarded terrorists–three.
Number of waterboarded terrorists where the information obtained could not have been obtained by other means — zero.
Number of waterboarded terrorists where information was obtained that is known to have prevented any future attacks — zero.
Number of waterboarded terrorists where the information obtained about prior attacks (1 for the USS Cole, 2 for 9/11) is admissible under regular standards of evidence at trial — zero.
Jason Im curious as to how you know this information?
If you have blogged on it in the past would you be kind enough to point me to your post with supporting information?
Tully, Connor, I presume that you then think that it’s acceptable for Americans to be waterboarded by enemies if they feel they have reason to assume that said Americans have information pertaining to imminent attacks on their soil?
I am to assume then that you think that the prosecution of Japanese citizens for waterboarding Americans in WWII was unjustified?
I’m sure you don’t think it’s only wrong if they do it, right?
I see you chose to ignore the points on reliability. Sorry, Jason, waterbaording may be a morally detestable technique and arguably illegal rather than legal through weaselly interpretation, but contrary to the talking points, it does sometimes work and provide useful and actionable (if certainly not always reliable) intel. That’s not remotely a legal or moral justification, just a statement of fact.
Number of waterboarded terrorists where the information obtained could not have been obtained by other means — zero.
Argumentative, specualtive, and requires a negative proof, thus a non-falsifiable (unprovable) statement. GMAFB. You know better.
Number of waterboarded terrorists where information was obtained that is known to have prevented any future attacks — zero.
False, and as a blanket statement only one example required for refutation. Abu Zubaydah. Per one of his actual interrogation team (though not one present for the waterboarding itself) he provided no information at all for the first few weeks after capture until waterboarded, then after a 35-second session sang like a bird, providing information that prevented "a number of attacks." The interrogator described the difference as "like flipping a switch."
When Brian Ross of ABC asked same interrogator (John Kiriakou) if the method "compromised American principles or saved American lives?" Kiriakou refused to take the offered "gotcha" false mutual exclusion and answered "Both." Note that Kiriakou’s public statements came well after he decided that waterboarding was torture and unacceptable even if technically legal, and after he left the CIA. Indeed, he’s the top exhibit in tracing the waterboarding authorizations directly to the White House. As the only direct source who is strongly opposed to continuing the practice, that’s as good as you’re gonna get for direct evidence without some major de-classification.
Number of waterboarded terrorists where the information obtained about prior attacks (1 for the USS Cole, 2 for 9/11) is admissible under regular standards of evidence at trial — zero.
Straw man, and in more ways than one. First, the obtaining of evidence from outside the bounds of the US that will be admissible at any domestic criminal trial "under regular standards of evidence" is already vanishingly small. Same evidence would be completely admissible in some non-US venues–but those pesky treaties oft prevent us from turning such suspects over to the countries where they could be tried. EX: Zubaydah is already under a death sentence in Jordan for his role in the millenium bomb plot aimed at US and Israeli tourists in Amman (broken up by Jordanian intel a few weeks before it was scheduled). According to Jordan, those same intel intercepts provide substantive evidence that he was also involved in the LAX 2000 bomb plot, but that evidence is simply not admissible in US domestic courts. And Zubaydah arguably can fight extradition to Jordan on grounds of UNCAT Article 1 Section 3 refoulment to countries where there are "substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." Jordan sure qualifies. Likewise the evidence in hand could be used against him in Yemeni courts for the Cole bombing–but once again, see UNCAT Article 1 Section 3.
Second, once a person has been waterboarded there is no way to know what subsequent testimony or confessions or actions are the direct or indirect result of the waterboarding motivation, even months or years later, yet things such as later voluntary confessions and personal writings can still clearly be admissible in many circumstances. See also the rules on both collateral and inevitable discovery, and how otherwise inadmissible evidence can be admitted as confirmatory when supported through such discovery. So it’s impossible to prove such a blanket statement. See above re: argumentative, speculative, and requiring negative proofs.
Tully, Connor, I presume that you then think that it’s acceptable for Americans to be waterboarded by enemies if they feel they have reason to assume that said Americans have information pertaining to imminent attacks on their soil?
Claudia, at what point have I ever said that I thought waterboarding was acceptable? Please. I do not have to support it to point out inconsistencies in the contra arguments. It’s not a matter of what *I* think is acceptable. It’s a matter of what the law says, whether or not the law actually permitted the action, and whether there were any notable results from doing so. My own feelings on the acceptability or legality of waterboarding (statute here–read for yourself) are a completely different subject than what the law actually says. I’m just real tired of the emotive BS rhetoric emanating FROM BOTH SIDES, rhetoric that demands you be either an idiot or an ignoramus to disagree with the absolutist claims being made either way.
Hmm Tully, though I happen to disagree with your argumentation to Jason, I apologize for assuming that you found the practice acceptable. I assumed so because you were giving arguments in favor of it’s effectiveness.
On second thought I should have separated the two and I didn’t. Personally to me it’s effectiveness is entirely a secondary matter, given that I think it’s so morally reprehensible that it shouldn’t be done even if it IS effective.
Guys, its not about using water-boarding to get evidence for a trial. Its about saving lives when you are dealing with a high intelligence target. To the best of our knowledge water boarding has been authorized by the President 3 times and all were a success. I don’t like the idea of using it and it should be avoided. I am also aware that one should never interpret your own rules and laws to serve as a suicide pact. President Lincoln certainly broke the rules, but looking back most agree that he was right to do so.
Tully, your claims that the practice has been effective are based on an allusion to classified information which is indistinguishable from arguing from a complete lack of evidence. You ask us to assume it was effective based on nothing but an assumption. You ask us to deem it more effective than alternatives based on unprovable allegations about a single case.
I think if the practice had led to specific acts being prevented, the government would have every incentive and no disincentive to advertising it.
I don’t buy your unsupported arguments. And I don’t believe that the costs outweigh the benefits regardless, which is the bottom line for any argument based in claims of "effectiveness". Insofar as the use of tactics like waterboarding serve to create more terrorists and legitimize the acts of those who already were committed to the anti-American cause, EVEN IF you could somehow prove allegations of "effectiveness", I would still win that it was "counterproductive" as I have said.
I see that while complaining about others misrepresenting your arguments, you have no problem misrepresenting others’.
Tully, your claims that the practice has been effective are based on an allusion to classified information which is indistinguishable from arguing from a complete lack of evidence.
Bull. I offered positive and credible evidence that’s available to anyone, however thin you may opine it to be or however much you may wish to dismiss it. You offered a blanket assertion refutable by ANY positive evidentiary example, and I provided one. Simply dismissing anything offered, as compared to your own offer of nothing but unprovable speculative and argumentative claims and demands for negative proofs, is completely fallacious argumentation. I know you know that.
I think if the practice had led to specific acts being prevented, the government would have every incentive and no disincentive to advertising it.
Uh huh. I’d say an official publicly released Presidential statement to Congress fully constitutes "advertising" of success.
"The CIA’s ability to conduct a separate and specialized interrogation program for terrorists who possess the most critical information in the War on Terror has helped the United States prevent a number of attacks, including plots to fly passenger airplanes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles and into Heathrow Airport or buildings in downtown London. While details of the current CIA program are classified, the Attorney General has reviewed it and determined that it is lawful under existing domestic and international law, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions." –George W. Bush, 3/08/08 Veto Message to the House of Representatives
Not to mention that Presidential radio address to America, same day:
"This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us prevent a number of attacks. The program helped us stop a plot to strike a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, and a plot to crash passenger planes into Heathrow Airport or buildings in downtown London."
Nope, no "advertising" there! Kept a complete lid on it by broadcasting it nationwide. Otherwise, didn’t mention it to a soul…what do they need to do to qualify as "advertising" by your standards, Jason? Take out billboards? Paid full-sheet ads in the NYT? Late-night infomercial videos of suspects breaking under waterboarding?
Kiriakou’s public statements that waterboarding worked in preventing attacks were confirmed by the President’s radio address.
“It was like flipping a switch,” said Mr Kiriakou. "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."
Kiriakou’s against waterboarding as well. It’s indisputable that he was in a position to know. Which part of his statements do you wish to claim are non-admissible, wrong, or somehow non-existent? That waterboarding was authorized by the White House, that it went against our principles as Americans..or that it prevented attacks?
Claudia asked a loaded question based on a mistaken assumption, and I asked her to re-evaluate her assumption. She did so. And I thank her for it.
FACT: Waterboarding, whether legally torture or not, has been employed by the CIA in some few known instances and has reportedly resulted in some very real successes in preventing/disrupting SPECIFIC terrorist attacks. See list above.
That doesn’t at all necessarily make the practice moral or legal–nor would a lack of success necessarily make it immoral or illegal. Those are separate questions, despite the conflationary side arguments trotted out. And that doesn’t make it generally effective in comparison to alternatives, just specifically effective in particular instances and circumstances. But that’s a far cry from "never works" and "has accomplished nothing."
Honesty and candor should be most welcome on such a serious subject, and is the only way to get past the patellar-reflexive and logically fallacious arguments of the dogmatic extremes for a sober and realistic evaluation of the facts, to steer past the rhetoric and into the realities. Don’t you agree?
Quoting someone else’s unsupported assertion does not provide genuine support for one’s own. I’d like to hear specifics about how a specific piece of information obtained from a specific source made it possible to stop a specific attack in a specific way. All you are offering is sweeping assertions that information obtained from ALL of the people waterboarded supposedly saved American lives in some allegedly planned attacks by some mechanisms that are left undefined. The gaps in the information offered are suspicious enough. The claim of 100% success rate in obtaining critical life-saving information across the 3 cases is just implausible without a better explanation. Since we are dealing with something that looks and feels like torture (regardless of whether it can evade that designation in some contorted technical definitional debate), I think there should be a very high burden of proof upon those who advocate its necessity or utility. And because it cuts to the heart of national morality, the President has an obligation to do more than just assert that it stopped an attack — he has to explain HOW it did so and WHY alternatives were inadequate. ANY level of vagueness or hiding behind classification is unacceptable in this particular area.
Maybe you should have considered that before posting your sarcastic and snotty responses. As someone who teaches students to look past the easy pseudo-answers to confront the deeper difficulties and inevitable tradeoffs in public policy questions (especially international relations), I’d be inclined to agree that a non-dogmatic and nuanced approach is preferable. Unfortunately, people on blogs often find themselves forced into more dogmatic positions than they might otherwise prefer in response to abusive and sarcastic provocations from commenters who apply to others standards that they show little interest in living up to themselves. Approaching the discussion with the cheeky attitude of a tenth-grader doesn’t win you any points with me and makes me less inclined to treat your contributions seriously.
Hi Jason, after you challenged Tully to support what he said with evidence he did. Who is going to know about who he ordered water boarded and what the results were then the President of the United States? I think your reaction to him with the name calling is uncalled for. You might not like the president, or you may not believe him and that is your choice, but you challenged Tully to offer some back up for his statements and he did just that so you attacked him and that just isn’t the right thing to do in my opinion. Poligazette is in the thick of the kitchen so it is always wise to take the heat with a good natured poker face
I didn’t name-call anyone. I referred to the President as "the President". In spite of the respect that I have for the President as a person and his office (your assumption that I am anti-Bush is completely without merit), the fact remains that the President did not offer any evidence for his assertions sufficient to meet the burden of proof necessary to show that waterboarding was justified or effective. Blanket assertions are just blanket assertions, regardless of the source.
Jason – the following quotes came from your posts above.
"I didn’t name-call anyone."
"Approaching the discussion with the cheeky attitude of a tenth-grader doesn’t win you any points with me"
"Maybe you should have considered that before posting your sarcastic and snotty responses"
Nope no name calling there…and I didn’t assume you were anti-Bush or anything of the kind. I just pointed out that if you liked him or believed him or not that was your choice, but he did back up his claim. I really wish people would just take words at their direct contextual meaning and not read stuff into them, but that is always a problem in text based communication. Remember Jason – a good poker face is a healthy thing as it aids in the communication process.