How can we, as military people, consider waterboarding anything other than torture?

I am a member of a BBS/Forum for professional Navy Senior NCOs.  There is a wide variety of points of view, from far left to far right.  One of our discussions that keeps popping up, as it is with many people and groups, regards waterboarding in particular, and the use of torture by the US in general.  Recently the topic came up again in response to a Navy Judge Advocate General (Military Lawyer ) resigning over a Senior JAG comments regarding waterboarding. ( see http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,158983,00.html?ESRC=navy-a.nl)

Below is my response. 

I cannot believe what I am reading here. It astounds me. That men and women who have sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, against ALL enemies foreign AND domestic, the genesis for a country that constantly and consistantly SAYS that it is committed to the Rule of law, and indeed castigates many other countries that fail to meet that standard, would say that torture, and make no mistake about it, waterboarding IS torture, is ok as long as it’s enemy combatants, or terrorists or those other guys, baffles me.

Amendment VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Now I could dissertate about my thoughts of just who the Constitution applies to, but bottom line it applies to all US Citizens - i.e. Americans. Now do NOT mistake me for a left leaning peace at all costs, don’t hurt them liberal. I am most assuradly NOT. I believe if you go to war, win it. But I cannot see where if we do what they do, we are any better than they are.

To put it another way. The Japanese in WWII conducted live vivisections on Chinese and North Koreans to examine the effectiveness of their biological warfare programs. The Nazis conducted all sorts of medical experiments on Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Christians et all. Japanese POW camps were a study in man’s capacity for inhumanity. Josef Stalin wasn’t a saint either, witness the treatment of the Kulaks. The point of this, what ties all of those groups together is that the victims of their cruel and inhuman treatment was this - the victims were not human or were semi-human, barbarians, etc.

And let us not forget the Slaves of the United States during the era of slavery (and even after 1865). What was the justification of permitting this horrid institution? Simply this - blacks were not human, or were semi-human.

And also let us not forget how we treated the real or at least first, Americans - The Indians. Trail of tears. Need I say more? And what was the justification for this? They (the indians) were not human or were semi-human.

And so I come to this place were I see that we don’t call the Victims of waterboarding sub-human or semi-human, but merely barbarians or terrorists and that THAT label is the one that justifies treating these people as less than human. If someone treated an animal (dog, cat, etc) in the same manner, i.e. waterboarding, then everyone would be up in arms about it, screeching to the high heavens that such treatment is inhuman and inhumane.

Can you not see my confusion? Can you not see the dichotomy, the utter implausibility of such a stance? Before anyone takes off down the yellow brick road of defending waterboarding and other forms of torture on the grounds that IT IS JUSTIFIED IN THE PURSUIT OF NATIONAL SECURITY, I must ask you to indulge me in this: Read what I am saying, all of it, the black things called words, and do not insert words or ideas that are not there. Do not ‘read in’ or interpret beliefs that I have not specifically articulated. If I haven’t said it, then I HAVE NOT SAID IT.

Anyway, as to National Security ‘NEEDING’ us to pursue torture as a viable option. PLEASE, give me a break. We are supposedly the more technologically advanced, richest, brightest nation on earth. And the ONLY way we can get someone to talk is to break all of our ideals and torture people? If that’s our only alternative, we got bigger problems. We need to hang it up. Oh, yes and BTW, there is far too much research and actual experience that, at least to rational people, proves that all you really get from torture, the information at any rate, is what you want to hear. That is NOT the same thing as truth. Torture is ineffieciant and ineffective.

Now someone will most likely trot out the argument that “Well, they’ve been doing this since 9/11 and we haven’t had a Terrorist Attack on American Soil since”. Well, here is my take on that. There are a couple of reasons why AQ et al haven’t attacked us on home soil since.

1. They haven’t had to. We have obliged them by sending tens of thousands of victims over there to them. Made it easier. Now I am not saying we should pull out of Iraq and Afghanstan. We made the mess in Iraq, and as many have said “You make the mess, you clean it up” I am also not belittling our brave men and women over there. My brothers and sisters in Arms are precious to me. They are the best people I know. What I am saying is this: Afghanistan was the right move.

But we moved most of our troops out of Afghanistan (Which was going well up until we a) reduced our presence and b) pimped the job out to NATO), we sidelined the real war on terror. Iraq was NOT THEN part of the war on terror. I was on active duty then, and on a battle staff. That war HAD nothing to do with the war on terror. I won’t go in to what it WAS and/or why we went it. What I AM saying is that Iraq a) was the WRONG move and b) because we went in there, WE MADE it part of the war on terror.

2. It is an implausible argument that torture has been the instrament that has prevented AQ from attacking the US on home soil. The overwhelming majority of who we’ve nabbed and tortured have been small fry. And this is amazingly similar to our efforts on the war on drugs. And again, amazingly, we seem to be having the same level of success….

There just isn’t any real evidence that torture commited by us or at our behest has really stopped ANYTHING. If anything, it (torture) has given a great many of former supporters and those who were neutral towards us, a causus belli against us. In other words, our use of torture has been, to the Militant and disenfranchised Muslism community what 9/11 was to us - a major stimulus to recruiting.

3. To me this is the most compelling argument against the plausibility of torture being the instrament that has prevented another attack on US soil. AQ is simply not effectively organized or structured to act in a cohesive and operationally effective organization. A) they are more like a terrorism idea franchise rather than an effective terrorist organization. Want to know about effective terrorist organizations? PLO, IRA, Red Brigades, to name a few. AQ, by comparison, are a bunch of keystone cops that got lucky on 9/11.

The reason that 9/11 was successful? AL QUIDA GOT LUCKY BECAUSE WE WERE LAZY, OVERCONFIDENT AND STUPID. PERIOD. Read up on what happened and HOW it was able to happen. The 19 terrorists on those airplanes were not the brightest bulbs in the box. Neither are any of the rest of the group. They just got lucky. Reason that they haven’t done anything here (In USA) since, is a) We disrupted their freedom to maneuver and operate, via Afghanistan operations and b) we actually follow some of our security rules now.

It ain’t that we’ve garnered enough useful intelligence that we’ve been able to interdict AQ. It’s that the type of person attracted to ANY form of militant fundamentalist terrorist group is unstable, and unable to consistantly operate in an effective and structured manner long enough and with enough intelligence to actually plan, organize and execute anything other than what we are seeing in Iraq, and now increasingly in the one area (Afghanistan) where we were actually winning the war.

Final comment on waterboarding and torture.  If it wasn’t torture, would we outsource it, so we can appear (to ourselves) that we aren’t the ones doing it?  Why do we have to send victims (I won’t say innocent victims, because not all, in fact I believe most that we’ve nabbed are dirty to some extent) to third world dictatorships of one stripe or another, to have them do the dirty work? If WB is ‘ok’ why do none trumpet to the world “Sure, I’m doing it! I’m proud to be doing it!”

Would you want to tell your 10 year old daughter or son that you were sending people off, fathers, sons, some of whom are innocent of all alleged changes, to be tortured? Would you want to tell said 10 year old the specifics of what you do to people when you waterboard them? What would your mother say about your doing that?

Now, just to REALLY confuse you, there are actually some instances where I’d condone torture. On the battlefield when you have gotten ahold of someone, and you honestly have a) reason to believe that there is an Imminent threat to your troops and b) reason to believe that this person may or does have knowledge that will allow you to defend your troops and c) absolutely no time for any other approach, then do what you gotta do.

But make no mistake about it, the situation where we are doing waterboarding and other forms of torture fit none of those three situations.

If it is so vital to get the information, why not simply use Sodium Pentathol, Sodium Amatyl etc? They work better than torture.

I know that many who will read this post will feel compelled to call me a liberal, a do gooder, naive, unamerican etc.  I do not worry about that.  When someone who condones behavior that is so fundamentally Unamerican, and indeed Inhuman, well, I consider the source.    

For those who think that they know what waterboarding is, I’ve suggest that you review the definition/explanation from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Waterboarding-Definition-Wikipedia24dec05.htm. There are several different varieties of interrogation techniques referred to as waterboarding. In the medieval form of waterboarding, a victim was strapped to a board and tipped back or lowered into a body of water until he or she believed that drowning was imminent. The subject was then removed from the water and revived. If necessary the process was repeated. There are other forms, but all of them have in common that the victim almost drowns but is rescued or re-animated just before death occurs. The technique is designed to be both psychological and physical. The psychological effect is that the victim is led to believe that he or she is being executed. This reinforces the interrogator’s control and makes the victim experience mortal fear. The physical effects are extreme pain and damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation and sometimes broken bones because of the restraints on the struggling victim. A similar technique was applied to punish scolds and detect supposed witches. In a trial by ordeal called “dunking” or “ducking,” supposed witches were immersed into a vat of water or pond, and taken out after some time, when the victim was given the opportunity to confess. If she confessed, she was killed; if she did not confess, she was submerged again. This process was usually repeated until the victim either drowned or submitted herself to execution in another way (hanging or, rarely, burning). Current uses of waterboarding The current practice of waterboarding was known previously as “the water cure.” It involves tying the victim to a board with the head lower than the feet so that he or she is unable to move. A piece of cloth is held tightly over the face, and water is poured onto the cloth. Breathing is extremely difficult and the victim will be in fear of imminent death by asphyxiation. However, it is relatively difficult to aspirate a large amount of water since the lungs are higher than the mouth, and the victim is unlikely [but quite possible] actually to die if this is done by skilled practitioners. [No definition of skilled practitioners provided by Wikipedia, but it should probably be found in close proximity to executioner or bully. Required qualities for such a practitioner would be a rather low self esteem and a desire to see others suffer. These qualities are regularly found in armed services or guards]. Waterboarding may be used by captors who wish to impose anguish without leaving marks on their victims as evidence. This is a technique demonstrated on U.S. military personnel by other U.S. military personnel when they are being taught to resist enemy interrogations in the event of capture (see SERE below). On Nov. 18, 2005, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito described the CIA’s “waterboarding” technique as follows in an article posted on the ABC News web site: “The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. ‘The person believes they [sic] are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,’ said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.” [1] Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated “a number of people” who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including “water-boarding,” in which a suspect is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns. An interview for the New Yorker states: He argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said. One patient couldn’t take showers, and panicked when it rained. “The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,” he said. [2]

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