I don't even understand why we're picking nits on is/is-not waterboarding torture.
It is, but it's the case that the United States, the good guys, the white hats, the nation we want to be able to point to and say "You got to be on our side, we're on the side of the angels", should not be going anywhere near anything that even looks a little like torture.
We shouldn't be "Is waterboarding really torture or just really tough?" We should be going "Whoa. Waterboarding is pretty nasty stuff. We don't do that here."
I'm a crazy idealist. The argument isn't whether torture (or torture light) is acceptable or necessary. The argument is whether it's right to treat even the bad guys that way.
It's not.
I'm surprised I have to explain this.
Posted by Greg at November 4, 2007 5:08 PM
I heard on the news yesterday that, in the interim before Gonzo was made AG, one of the assistant AG's went to an army base and actually had himself waterboarded, in order to find out if it was indeed, torture. (Dude, I won't even work late if I can avoid it.)
He said (shock and surprise) that it was torture and drafting a memo to that effect when (double shock) he got fired.
Yeah, I saw that. The libpolblogs have been working it for a couple of days.
The whole moral aspect of this is just blowing my mind, and I don't know why the rest of the moralists (like the religious right) aren't frothing just as hard.