Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I think Congress should pass a law that says that anyone who thinks waterboarding is not torture should have to undergo waterboarding. And they can start with Joseph Farah for his stunningly idiotic column declaring that waterboarding is not torture. And he starts with this pile of self-righteous hypocrisy:
Americans are simply losing their ability to distinguish right from wrong.I don't know how else to put it.
Up is down, day is night, left is right and right is wrong.
And he's right; his own argument proves it. This is just the first ridiculous contradiction in his argument, where he claims simultaneously that waterboarding is 100% effective because it's so excruciating to the victim AND that waterboarding is just "a few seconds of dripping water on a prisoner's face." Joe, pick a horse and ride it. He makes three arguments:
1. That waterboarding works:
It was used successfully to learn about terrorist operations planned by two of al-Qaida's top operatives - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, involved in the planning of the 9/11 attack, and Abu Zubaida, another leader of the terrorist organization.Apparently both of these mass killers endured many hours of coercive interrogations without talking. But they sung like canaries after a few seconds of waterboarding.
In both cases, there is reason to believe planned terrorist attacks were foiled as a result of this technique.
If you define "reason to believe" as the testimony of a single former CIA agent who wasn't there for the interrogation but was told by others that these things are true - a former CIA agent who himself said that waterboarding is torture and should be banned. But this argument does not defend the argument that waterboarding is not torture; in fact, it argues against that position.
2. The "ticking time bomb" scenario:
Imagine American law enforcement or military authorities have captured a terrorist mastermind who has knowledge about an imminent nuclear detonation in an unknown American city. He knows the time, the location and the details about the warhead.The bomb could be going off at any minute. It could kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people...
But again, this argument does not defend the claim that waterboarding is not torture. And again, it tends in fact to argue against that claim by arguing that things are so bad that inflicting horrible pain is justified in this case. Farah doesn't seem to be capable of thinking logically here.
3. It's not torture because we use it to train our soldiers:
But here's why waterboarding is not torture.Do you know the U.S. military waterboards hundreds of our own soldiers every year? It is part of the conditioning Special Forces troops undergo to prepare for battle and the possibility of capture by the enemy.
In other words, it's OK for us to do this to America's best and brightest but it's too horrible for our worst enemies?
Does this make sense to anyone?
Well at least he finally made an argument that is logically related to his claim; unfortunately, it's utter nonsense. There is a big difference between using this as a training technique to teach our own forces to resist it should they be captured and using it on someone we've captured to get information. Our soldiers know that no real damage is going to be done, that their superior officers won't actually hurt them, and they still freak out after being subjected to this technique for just a few seconds.
Let's ask Malcolm Nance, former chief of training at the Navy's SERE school where they do such training, and see what he thinks about Farah's argument:
I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school's interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques employed by the Army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What is less frequently reported is that our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim.Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique - without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.
In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.
Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
How much of this the victim is to endure depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs that show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.
Here's irony for you: Farah criticizes those "armchair generals" who "are increasingly referring to 'waterboarding' as torture." Yet here is the actual man in charge of training the special forces saying it's torture and Farah, an armchair interrogator, claiming it's not.
Farah never addresses the strongest argument for waterboarding being torture: the fact that we have consistently called it torture when it has been used on our soldiers. He doesn't address that argument because there simply is no answer for it. And he knows it.
Comments
And this would have prevented the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, how? This is well past the 'ticking time bomb' scenario.
Posted by: Janine | January 3, 2008 9:42 AM
I have a different argument in favor of Water Torture er, I mean Kit Bond's Swimming Interrogation Technique...
The Appeal to Tradition.
We've done it before and if it was good enough for our forefathers it's good enough for the US of today!
Posted by: gene | January 3, 2008 9:58 AM
"In other words, it's OK for us to do this to America's best and brightest but it's too horrible for our worst enemies?"
Of course this makes sense. If waterboarding weren't a particularly nasty form of torture, why would we bother conditioning our soldiers to withstand it? The fact that we feel the need to expose our soldiers to the technique under controlled circumstances demonstrates loud and clear just how dangerous we think it could be for an unprepared victim.
Besides, since when does labeling someone an enemy, worst or otherwise, mean it's okay to treat them inhumanly. Aren't we supposed to be the good guys in this conflict? Gotta love fundamentalist Christian morality.
"Imagine American law enforcement or military authorities have captured a terrorist mastermind who has knowledge about an imminent nuclear detonation in an unknown American city. He knows the time, the location and the details about the warhead.
The bomb could be going off at any minute. It could kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people..."
Okay, now we're supposed to imagine that torture is the only way of saving these people. But, as a question for Farah, further imagine that if you torture the prisoner you'll be facing a likely jail sentence. Would you still do whatever it took to save these people, or would you let all of these people die instead of risking your own freedom?
Posted by: JustAnOutsider | January 3, 2008 10:13 AM
What's so ridiculous about this is that if you're going to argue that it works and it's only a "dunk in the water" and definitely isn't torture, then shouldn't we be using waterboarding in every police interrogation all over the country? If you're going to argue as Farah does, does it really doesn't make sense to have this greatly effective tool go so unused?
Posted by: MyPetSlug | January 3, 2008 10:15 AM
The 'ticking time bomb' scenario is just a chickenhawk argument. Torture is, was and will be illegal. Just because he would go to prison, Joseph Farah would refuse to torture someone to save the lifes of thousands of Americans. I think that is pretty unpatriotic, Joseph Farah is not willing to make any personal sacrifice to save America.
If you can't make the time, you should not commit the crime!
Anyone who tortures should go to prison, it doesn't matter if he got the information he wanted or not. It's that simple!
I think anyone who makes the 'ticking time bomb' argument is an unpatriotic coward.
Posted by: Heinrich | January 3, 2008 10:17 AM
Hypothetical scenario: You have captured a terrorist who knows the location of a ticking timebomb. But this terrorist is a pervert: he will only reveal the location if you rape your child in front of him.
Should the law provide some provision for emergency incest in such circumstances?
Posted by: JC | January 3, 2008 10:38 AM
Anybody who makes the "ticking time bomb" argument isn't just a coward, they're an idiot. One, there's no way to know that you've got the right guy. Two, if you have got the right guy, all he has to do is stall - which is easy, because you don't know where the bomb is, so he can run you around for weeks. I mean, how do you even know there really is a bomb, if you don't already know where it is?
In short, the entire scenario is simply a figment of scriptwriters' imaginations. It cannot work out that way in real life.
Oh, and I can't remember ever hearing of modern terrorists using time bombs anyway. Remote detonators, yes. Suicide bombing, yes. Timebombs? They're only good for when you're trying to extort ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the UN, or scuttle a Greenpeace ship...
Posted by: Dunc | January 3, 2008 10:52 AM
"Oh, and I can't remember ever hearing of modern terrorists using time bombs anyway. Remote detonators, yes. Suicide bombing, yes. Timebombs? They're only good for when you're trying to extort ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the UN, or scuttle a Greenpeace ship..."
The IRA used to make use of timebombs. ETA I believe also makes use of them.
Posted by: John Doe | January 3, 2008 11:05 AM
The SERE thing has to be the single stupidest argument ever to be commonly adopted by the wingnuts to defend the actions of this administration. "Waterboarding can't be torture because we use it when training people to resist torture." It's so obviously self defeating that anyone who uses it must be phenomenally stupid or arguing in bad faith.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2008 11:07 AM
A couple days ago PZ Myers posted this link to a person who actually had his wife put him through a waterboarding session. He described his experiences, and the description is quite powerful. I would like to be a fly on the wall of the room if the man who wrote this met Joseph Farah.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | January 3, 2008 11:27 AM
Farah says:
Apparently both of these mass killers endured many hours of coercive interrogations without talking. But they sung like canaries after a few seconds of waterboarding.
I think he thinks the reason this doesn't show that waterboarding is torture is that the bad guys are wusses. After all, suicide bombing is "cowardly," right?
JustAnOutsider, Ginger Yellow: I don't think we waterboard our soldiers in order to train them to withstand it, because that wouldn't work. As Nance says, "our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim." And to tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sure of the point of that.
Posted by: Dave M | January 3, 2008 12:09 PM
Gene -
Don't forget the free vacation provided to those who used the Kit Bond Method - several years extended stay at the sand castle dude ranch in Ft. Leavenworth.
Our own history with waterboarding is one reason Mukasey & his deputy refuse to call it torture. They know they would be required to prosecute based on previous cases.
Posted by: Pineyman | January 3, 2008 12:16 PM
I enjoy watching "24," but unlike right-wing tossers like Farah, I realize it's fiction.
I couldn't believe Farah's sentence on the aforementioned column claiming that (paraphrasing here) calling waterboarding torture would inhibit that Jack Bauers of America from doing their jobs.
News Flash, Joe: Jack Bauer is a fictional character. He does not exist.
Nor does the "ticking bomb" scenario.
Posted by: CHV | January 3, 2008 3:56 PM
I would also be interested to hear Farah's impressions of waterboarding as torture if, for example, a US Marine was kidnapped in Iraq and waterboarded by his captors to force him to share intel about current troop movements.
Torture or not?
I think I'll email him and ask. If Farah replies, I'll post his answer here.
Posted by: CHV | January 3, 2008 4:02 PM
What makes the "ticking time bomb" scenario especially vapid is the virtual impossibility that torture will work in that instance. Torture isn't rapid, it typically takes days to weeks of methodical torture to break someone being interrogated. Far more time than needed for a "ticking time-bomb" to go off. Real-life isn't an episode of 24.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | January 3, 2008 4:22 PM
Not only is it not rapid, but it isn't reliable. Since we know that most of what they'll "admit" under torture isn't true, we must torture enough prisoners until they give corresponding, reliable intelligence. This just makes the whole "ticking time-bomb" scenario being stopped by torture to be even more unlikely.
Posted by: doctorgoo | January 3, 2008 4:30 PM
Actually he did it to himself, and his wife merely observed, but thanks a lot for the link Shawn-- now that I've wasted at least an hour of productive time reading that thread.... ;-)
Posted by: Gretchen | January 3, 2008 5:29 PM
The "ticking-nuke" scenario (like the run-away trolley thought experiments) just shows how easy it is to create impossible moral dilemmas when you get to arbitrarily stipulate hypotheticals. And while useful for getting people to think through their moral reasoning, these scenarios have just about no application outside Ethics 101 class.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | January 3, 2008 5:59 PM
Gretchen--you're right. I looked at the post after posting the link and realized I was wrong. I guess I remembered his comment that he could believe his wife would be able to do it because they had been married fifteen years, and reinterpreted it that way. Thanks for the correction. If Scylla (the pen name) really is the tough guy he thinks he is, I wonder how he would react to Joseph Farah telling him to his face that waterboarding is not torture, or that it's a necessary tool to get useful information. Scylla said that he would have sold his kids after going through the final stage.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | January 3, 2008 6:45 PM
Does it strike anyone that the rationale behind the "waterboarding is not torture" argument borders almost on egocentrism, at least for some people who take that position (emphasis on "at least for some people who take that position")? What I mean by this is that their argument seems to boil down to the following: I support waterboarding in some instances; therefore, waterboarding is not torture.
Posted by: daniel rotter | January 3, 2008 9:04 PM
Yes, Daniel, that has occurred to me. All the pro-waterboarding arguments seem to say the same thing: "I want it used so I refuse to concede it's torture." Look, if it wasn't sick, none of this talking would be necessary and they know it. Frankly, that they want to see torture employed says something about their (lack of) character.
Posted by: Donna | January 4, 2008 9:03 AM
Waterboarding - you mean Pol Pot's preferred technique for getting confessions from innocent Cambodian civilians before executing them? You mean a favored technique used during the Spanish Inquisition to create "true believers" in Christianity?
Let's see how it worked for Pol Pot:
www.davidcorn.com/archives/2006/09/this_is_what_wa.php
From the article:
Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods.
Another point is that the US Military CANNOT train people to "withstand" waterboarding. There is no withstanding it. It breaks the hardest terrorists and the toughest SEALs in well under a minute.
As for Khaled Sheik Mohammed, he literally agreed to everything suggested to him while being waterboarded. Almost all of his "confessions" turned out to be dead-ends. You will hear Bush and others say "there's reason to believe" that waterboarding KSM saved American lives, but the reality is that none of his testimony has been linked to any plots aimed at Americans, and none of them were to plots inside the US. It is pure conjecture.
The ticking time bomb scenario never happens in real life. The ticking time bomb has been thoroughly debunked here and many other places, I don't need to repeat all that.
But beyond that, you have to realize that certain tortures have certain results associated with them. Historically, waterboarding has never been used to actionable intelligence: it is designed to get confessions, which can then be used in a kangaroo court such as the ones the Spanish used in the 17th century, the Pol Pot used in Cambodia, and the so-called "Tribunals" in Guantanamo, where hearsay evidence and confessions gained under torture are considered valid, and the accused has no real rights of self-defense.
The reason Pol Pot loved waterboarding was because of it's speedy effectiveness. Pol Pot had over a million people executed. He wanted to get dozens of confessions a day, without regard to whether they were true or not. He just needed some bogus reason to execute each of those people. Waterboarding is the perfect technique for getting a bogus confession as fast as possible.
So I guess for you people that regard Pol Pot as a nice guy and upstanding defender of human rights, this doesn't bother you.
But it should really make the rest of us think twice.
Posted by: yogi-one | January 4, 2008 10:04 AM
American military personell have been court martialled for waterboarding, once during the Vietnam War and more than once in the Phillipines early in the 20th Century - it was torture then and it is torture now.
I really think the Fundamentalist Hypochristians believe that America is god's chosen coutry which exempts it from all international laws or any obligation for moral conduct.
Posted by: Freddy the Pig | January 5, 2008 1:43 AM
To Pineyman:
Dear Sir, don't forget if we don't use Water Torture we will be cited by Amnestry International for not giving Water to the prisoners, Ergo we *MUST* use Water Torture.
Take that!
Gene
Posted by: Gene | January 5, 2008 1:49 AM