Genuine Realist
Member
What I want to change your mind about is the timing of the discussion. It was actually pretty open in 2001-3. No one uttered a peep.
I found the whole thing pretty repellent, and actually wrote a letter to the editor of my newspaper about it. The gist was that TRUE 'ticking bomb' situations are extremely rare, and self-defined. If you ever do find yourself in a situation where a flesh-and-blood kidnap victim is running out of air, or a bomb truly set to explode, you or me or Mother Theresa will probably do what we have to, to end the menace, because that's the way the categorical imperative points. But Dershowitz - and the others, this is just one example - were talking about situations that were much more ephemeral and problematic, and that just won't do.
But no one said a word. The discussions didn't start until FIVE years after the fact, in 2007, and with an incredible amount of moralizing. Not every one knows this, but waterboarding is actually part of standard training for American Special Forces, to give the candidate some idea of the limits of his endurance. I know a Navy SEAL who underwent it. He describes it as pretty much an ordeal, and he definitely thinks it should NOT be used as an interrogation technique. But he also doesn't see it as Nuremberg stuff - after all, he's hale and healthy, as are the THREE (!) - that's all - subjects of CIA interrogation. Dershowitz, on the other hand, was talking about the Real Thing, missing fingernails, scars, worse, and suggesting that it was all perfectly OK. Pretty unsettling, and none of the latter-day critics saying a word, though they were all around.
Do we have a policy hole that has to be plugged? You betcha. Whether or not waterboarding is torture - I think John Yoo was influenced a lot that it was part of military training, and how could that be torture - we shouldn't do it. Do we have a major scandal? Not really. Not that much happened.
But apparently a mild version what the critics couldn't be bothered to answer when the matter was topical becomes - years after the fact - when it's safe - so horrible that Heads Must Roll. It is the smug sanctimoniousness of this that bugs me. Speak up when it matters. I did.
I found the whole thing pretty repellent, and actually wrote a letter to the editor of my newspaper about it. The gist was that TRUE 'ticking bomb' situations are extremely rare, and self-defined. If you ever do find yourself in a situation where a flesh-and-blood kidnap victim is running out of air, or a bomb truly set to explode, you or me or Mother Theresa will probably do what we have to, to end the menace, because that's the way the categorical imperative points. But Dershowitz - and the others, this is just one example - were talking about situations that were much more ephemeral and problematic, and that just won't do.
But no one said a word. The discussions didn't start until FIVE years after the fact, in 2007, and with an incredible amount of moralizing. Not every one knows this, but waterboarding is actually part of standard training for American Special Forces, to give the candidate some idea of the limits of his endurance. I know a Navy SEAL who underwent it. He describes it as pretty much an ordeal, and he definitely thinks it should NOT be used as an interrogation technique. But he also doesn't see it as Nuremberg stuff - after all, he's hale and healthy, as are the THREE (!) - that's all - subjects of CIA interrogation. Dershowitz, on the other hand, was talking about the Real Thing, missing fingernails, scars, worse, and suggesting that it was all perfectly OK. Pretty unsettling, and none of the latter-day critics saying a word, though they were all around.
Do we have a policy hole that has to be plugged? You betcha. Whether or not waterboarding is torture - I think John Yoo was influenced a lot that it was part of military training, and how could that be torture - we shouldn't do it. Do we have a major scandal? Not really. Not that much happened.
But apparently a mild version what the critics couldn't be bothered to answer when the matter was topical becomes - years after the fact - when it's safe - so horrible that Heads Must Roll. It is the smug sanctimoniousness of this that bugs me. Speak up when it matters. I did.
