Anybody else hear about this?
Honest question? What do people think about whether or not waterboarding is torture? Second question: whether it is or not, is it okay to use this technique to get information?
Enjoy the weekend, everyone!
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3 comments:
A) Absolutely it's torture. Our soldiers go through as part of their training to withstand torture; we were outraged when our soldiers did this in 1902 to Filipinos (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_kramer ). Making someone feel like they're going to drown...that's torture.
B) No way we should do this, regardless of efficacy. As Phillip Gourevitch pointed out in the New Yorker and in a podcast recently, just because things work doesn't mean they are justified. Assassination, he pointed out, "works," but we don't (officially) condone that. Dozens of interrogators across the military spectrum have described the incredibility of evidence obtained under torture. Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World, describes the witchcraft trials and their use of torture...and how, of course, the women (almost always women, typically old) ended up agreeing to whatever B.S. the interrogators wanted. We no longer deserve to be saved when we save ourselves via ignoble means.
Agreed on both counts, Tamo. I like the comparison to assassination, especially.
The means we use by which to control others is a topic we discuss often in therapy. Lots of parents and husbands believe that physical violence toward their children and wives is valid because it allows them to maintain control and order in the household. (btw, I'm not putting spanking into the category of violence) The problem is that physical violence dehumanizes wives and children...and those who engage in it. There are many ways to maintain order and maintain respect in a household that do not involve physical violence, that put more responsibility on all parties involved, and are therefore more empowering and more humanizing. I share this not to say that terrorism is the same thing as wife/child abuse. I say this to make the point that violence is the easy way out of these difficult situations. There are better, more effective, more nuanced ways to do the job.
Gourevitch also makes that excellent point...asking our soldiers to torture doesn't just damage those interrogated: it damages the ones we ask to do the torturing of another human being. And so a strong way to support our troops is to not ask them to become monsters to defend us.
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