The Waterboarding (discussion) continues

Sir:

Mr. Halenda and Mr. Mitra make detailed arguments regarding the technique, the legality, the effect and the catagorization of “waterboarding”, but both (as do most) miss the salient point. Let me use this example: You are a soldier who comes upon an Iraqi who has a weapon. Do you shoot him, talk to him, or something in between? Obviously, judgment plays a huge part in such a decision, and judgment is often faulty. Waterboarding is not inherently anything. It is the worst form of torture to some, and a joke to others. I would bet that al Qaeda trainees are trained to understand and deal with waterboarding. I can say this with some confidence, having been a Navy SEAL. In SEAL training, the first night of Hell Week is (or at least it used to be) kicked off with mass water “torture.” The instructors lie the class on their backs (freezing, I might add) and several of them make the rounds with hoses and buckets, trying to get trainees to quit. Some do. But most figure out pretty quickly how to breathe around the water and when the instructors see it is ineffective, they leave you alone. Another example is the reporter on CNN, also a former SEAL, who had himself videotaped being waterboarded. Of course, the segment focused on the dramatic. But when asked how long he had it done to himself, the “victim” said, “Oh, about 25-30 minutes, then we got kind of tired of it.” I guarantee you, that guy, and any former SEAL, could have done that until he starved to death! The point here is not that waterboarding (and beyond) may well be the technique of choice depending upon the person being interrogated. Some poor guy off the street is going to be “tortured” by the technique, which automatically dictates something lesser in that case. A hard-core al Qaeda operative is going to pretend to be tortured, but will be laughing under the cloth. One man’s “torture” is another man’s rest period. We cannot reduce all techniques to the lowest common denominator to protect the most sensitive potential prisoner. I favor well-trained interrogators who know what the relevant technique is in a situation, monitor it closely, and know when to give up. After all, they are after good information from living subjects. They are not insane torture addicts, meting out devilish techniques just to see people squirm and die. To some extent, interrogation is trial and error. No interrogation should begin without competent people and record keepers, with several people agreeing on the techniques and whether to continue. No one wants a subject to just spit out useless information. That does more harm than good. So, I don’t see any real barriers here, other than those which are irreversible or unnecessary. We need more people, better trained, with better supervision. All we do by outsourcing extreme interrogation to other countries, where “no one is looking” is ensure that mindless torture will take place, resulting in unreliable information, which is then passed back to us for action. Better to keep control of interrogation and admit that the applicable techniques will vary by the situation and the subject. We need professionalism, not legal opinions.

And finally, the old example for those who say no to this: your son or daughter is being held by terrorists, who have published a video and say they are going to behead him/her in 10 days if we don’t get out of the Middle East. We caught one of the abductors and are 100% certain he knows where they are holding him/her. We have tried every technique short of waterboarding to get him to talk. You happen to be in a position of authority in the Defense Department, so the interrogators and the officers ready to take a SEAL Team in to get your son/daughter turn to you and say,

“What do you want to do?” In the background on TV, CNN is talking about the criticism against Bush for waterboarding, and a bunch of congresspeople and others are talking about how repulsed they are by it and that the US “does not torture people”. Your call.

Sincerely,