I appreciate the distinctions you draw. The problem is that “pain” is just another word, like “torture.” Accepting your relatively narrow definition of “pain,” we can return to the word “torture” and re-define it as “use of negative reinforcement” or “coercion of testimony via physical force or fear” or some such. In other words, we can include both universes of “torture,” brutal infliction of extreme physical pain as well as psychological torture and even “repetitive sounds, awful music, or stress positions,” as we do when we colloquially and hyperbolically refer to merely tedious or annoying experiences as torture. And that wouldn’t be arbitrary: A stress position, for instance, can easily turn into something excruciating, and for that matter the same stress position can be experienced as torture by one individual and mere annoyance at worst by another individual. There are even rare cases of people who are invulnerable to torture.

The anti-torture convention the US signed under Reagan defines torture as follows:

torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted

Many observers feel that waterboarding meets that definition, or, at best, comes uncomfortably close: The panic state induced by waterboarding might qualify as “severe mental pain,” as would the fear of repetition of the experience.

All of these words remain subject to re-contextualization: What appears “severe” on a bright day at peace may not seem so severe the morning after a nuclear 9/11. It would be costly politically to re-define our approach to interrogation. So, in a typical pattern, we will likely wait until after the otherwise avoidable emergency, when the political cost of not-torturing seems to exceed the cost of torturing – then look forward to the next bright day, and torture ourselves over our prior reactions…

Under a sufficiently broad definition – use of pain to compel cooperation – no questioning or punishment of any kind if possible without torture.

In that context, waterboarding is not torture. Waterboarding is not painful in the sense that being burned, poked, or struck with blunt force are painful. Waterboarding is intensely stressful from a psychological and physiological standpoint, for certain. Inducing the sensation of drowning causes the body to go into an adrenal, fight-or-flight overdrive, spiking heart rate and blood pressure. A person is not meant to remain in that state for extended periods of time, which is why the average person who gets waterboarded lasts usually less than 15 seconds before tapping out. That being said, there’s no pain involved, and short of a person having a heart attack as a result of it, there’s no lasting effects. You literally haven’t harmed a hair on their head. Obviously the worst part about waterboarding is not the event itself, but the control ones captors have that they can induce such a reaction from you at a whim. From that perspective, it’s no worse than repetitive sounds, awful music, or stress positions. It’s establishing absolute control of the situation on the part of the captors, with cooperation being the captive’s only recourse.

Why do so many conservatives go to the trouble of insisting that waterboarding isn’t torture if (taking this poll as a representative sample) they’re perfectly okay with torture?

aengus on December 30, 2009 at 9:50 AM

I think that’s actually a good question. “Torture” is a word whose meaning and connotations shift with context, like any other word. Waterboarding strikes me as a classic borderline case: Viewed in some ways, it’s clearly torture, but it obviously isn’t anywhere near as bad as many other things almost anyone would call “torture.” Under a sufficiently broad definition – use of pain to compel cooperation – no questioning or punishment of any kind if possible without torture.

aengus on December 30, 2009 at 9:50 AM
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Would you feel differently if your mother was on that plane. Get your head out of the air and understand they are ENEMY COMBATANTS, would it make you feel better if we gave him twenty paces and took him out with an M16 (battlefield – like). Ignorance must truly be Bliss!!

I’m surpised that 68% of readers would be okay with that when it would seem to mean unambiguous torture methods like tearing his fingernails out, blowtorching his crotch etc.

Why do so many conservatives go to the trouble of insisting that waterboarding isn’t torture if (taking this poll as a representative sample) they’re perfectly okay with torture?

But, this Congress? This Administration? Don’t hold your breath.

coldwarrior on December 29, 2009 at 7:21 AM

Absotively not holding breath. Breathing normally, in and out.

However, if a terror campaign of some sort materialized, the pressure to enact emergency measures, of which critical parts would likely become permanent features of the law, would be immense. Unless the terrorist threat evaporates, we have condemned ourselves to undergo both devastating attacks and a subsequent overcompensation. In trying to turn the Constitution into a suicide pact, liberalism at war seeks its own destruction, with unnumbered American civilians (and foreign innocents made collateral to eventual retaliation) the accompanying ritual sacrifice.

He was apprehended on US soil…thus, as a landed immigrant [no pun intended] our Nigerian Dependable Bomber is to be afforded the same judicial Rights as any US person. Thus, no waterboarding or any other enhanced interrogation methods.

Like it or not, we are still a nation of laws, not men.

Until Congress enacts legislation establishing what is and what is not a proper “US person’ and the USSC upholds that legislation, current law enforcement and the “rules” take precedence.

Had he been captured outside the US…then the full panoply of enhanced methods should surely be utilized as the situation warrants.

But, this Congress? This Administration? Don’t hold your breath.

From the poll results, it looks like you’d be leaving yourself open to a challenge from the right in the HotAirian primary.

“I’ll take Machiavelliville for $500, Art.”

You’d have to get in line.

Howard Portnoy on December 28, 2009 at 4:25 PM
Xmas passed peacefully enough. To that end it was probably somewhat helpful, I’d say, that there weren’t any airliners crashing into major cities causing minimum hundreds of casualties and a state of national emergency.

Hope your Christmas was bright. Please add me to the list of those who would like to see Abdulmahthingajigabob water-boarded. I would WB him on the strength of his name alone.

He tried to KILL HUNDREDS OF AMERICANS and was only thwarted by faulty equipment. He’ll get no quarter from me – nor should he you.