re: #685 drcordell

This is exactly correct. There’s no point in concealing facts about an action or policy one supports. Me? i used to dodge around the thing, saying water-boarding wasn’t torture because of the intent of the interrogator, the protections on the life of the one being interrogated, and the fact that the act, if carried out with medical supervision, is unlikely to cause death or even permanent physical harm.

I then went on to praise it as being ingenious because it appeared to serve all the purposes of torture, but without all the negatives attached to it. But then I realized that the effectiveness of torture is not dependent upon its ability to kill or maim - those are not the primary intended effects at the time of administration. Consequently, I realized that waterboarding was torture - refined, scientific, and, if done properly, non-lethal - but still torture.

In the end, I was unable to avoid assimilating waterboarding to torture. It is torture, in my estimation, and I have no problem with its use in military and national security and intelligence settings to obtain actionable information not otherwise obtainable. It compromises us, but we have always the possibility of reform when we go astray.