Thoughts on Waterboarding
The debate over waterboarding was reignited after a 2005 memo released last week describes how two senior al-Quaeda operatives were exposed to the tactic a total of 266 times.
In response, Dick Cheney had this to say in a television interview:
One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure (approved by Obama) is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified. I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven’t announced this up until now, I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.
A few points about this. First, all the memos should be released in order for the public to truly understand and appreciate the decisions that were made. Regardless of where one stands, we certainly have an interest in seeing the whole picture. Second, waterboarding does seem less problematic if it in fact worked; that is, if it prevented something concrete. It seems that many fair-minded Americans would agree that if waterboarding three senior al-Qaeda operatives prevented an attack on American civilians, so be it. Of course, reasonable minds can differ on this issue.
However, this leads to my third point. Whether such policies were actually successful in preventing another attack misses the argument that many of those that are against waterbroading preach. That argument was summed up yesterday by President Obama at C.I.A. headquarters:
What makes the United States special and what makes [the C.I.A.] special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy, even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when its expedient to do so. So yes, you’ve got a harder job and so do I, and that’s okay.
To me, this quote demonstrates that even President Obama himself believes that these procedures work. He recognizes that not having them in the C.I.A.’s arsenal will make America’s job of preventing another attack harder. Yet, this is the precise bargain that the President is willing to make. To him, the issue is not whether these procedures work, but rather whether we should be implementing these tactics even though they work.
While I appreciate this argument, I have trouble conceiving a value more important for an administration than protecting its people from attacks. This is the fundamental responsibility of government. In fact, it’s the reason we enter into organized society via the social compact and leave behind our brutish natural state. If government fails in this objective, it loses much of its legitimacy.
Another oft-cited argument is that evidence of waterboarding by the United States is a recruitment tool for terrorists. The more the United States engages in this sort of thing, the more terrorists it creates, or so the argument goes. It might be true that evidence of torture causes an influx in those willing to take up arms against the US. But I can’t imagine it being that significant of an influx. If evidence of waterboarding makes someone a terrorist, chances are they were pretty much there already. After all, the tactic was used on three people and not administered at-will to every inmate at Guantanamo Bay. This was a targeted campaign directed at those with the most information – three senior al-Quaeda operatives – for the purpose of preventing attacks on American civilians. One of them was the self-confessed decapitator of Daniel Pearl, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. One might disagree with waterboarding, but, considering all of this, I can’t imagine it being so shocking and so infuriating as to turn a house-wife into a suicide bomber.
I don’t know. All I can say is that if I were president of the United States and I had serious reason to believe that one of three senior al-Quaeda operatives had information that could lead to stopping an attack on, say, the Brooklyn Bridge, I just might have the guy waterboarded.
