Why Not Waterboard?

I've been reading a bit of the conservative milblog Blackfive over the last couple of weeks, and I think it's a pretty good blog. The discussions there are meaty, civil, and interesting, and perhaps because it's the holiday season and I'm an Army brat, I've been really enjoying the military-oriented discussions there.

Today though, Uncle Jimbo of Blackfive inadvertently poses an extremely important question about torture, and waterboarding in particular.

He quotes a Post article about an al Qaeda operative's rapid collapse under waterboarding, and says:

So we save this piece of filth's life and then we give him the same crap many of us got in training and lo and behold in an obvious world record of 31/100 of one second he caves, heck I lasted almost half a second. Bottom line was he helped send a few more willing souls on to Allah.

Does it strike anyone else that if police can extract confessions in less than a second using a technique that is generally regarded as non-lethal and which doesn't leave marks, that this miracle tactic should be employed in every police precinct in America?

Or perhaps there are reasons not to do so. Can anyone think of what those might be? Can anyone suggest reasons that information gained using the water cure or waterboarding might not necessarily be, oh, reliable?

If you want to cheerlead torture because it makes you feel tough, that's one thing. To champion torture because you think it provides reliable information is pretty silly.

Posted by shamanic at December 7, 2005 12:24 PM | TrackBack