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One Bad Argument Against Waterboarding

I remain undecided as to whether waterboarding is ever justified in any circumstance, including the "ticking time bomb" scenario where waterboarding may be the only means of obtaining critical information to potentially save lives.

What I know, however, is that there is one very terrible argument against waterboarding -- that we should not do it because it would justify other countries waterboarding our citizens or soldiers, and that we would lose credibility were we to complain about other countries waterboarding if our people were captured during war time.

The argument has a couple of obvious flaws. There are plenty of things we do -- and feel justified doing -- that we don't want other countries doing. Projecting power in the western hemisphere, influencing monetary and economic policies throughout the globe, exercising undue influence in organizations like the WTO, World Bank, IMF, etc. When critics say these are bad things, they generally don't say it's because they want us to be able to complain when other countries do it.

But for some reason this is an argument gaining traction with anti-waterboarders.

But even in the context of interrogation, we know instinctually that this argument is a bad one. There are lots of things we don't want other countries doing to our citizens that aren't as extreme as waterboarding.

We don't want other countries yelling at or verbally threatening our prisoners of war with prosecution, other countries imprisoning our soldiers in solitary confinement, or other countries, even temporarily, detaining our citizens without a fair hearing. And yet, obviously the U.S. isn't about to give up these abilities on the basis that it won't be able to credibly complain when other countries do it.

As another matter, it's far from clear that the opposite isn't true, at least in some cases. That is, we *might* be ok with other countries waterboarding our citizens in very specific situations. Say, a U.S. national like John Walker Lindh plants a ticking suitcase bomb in England, and has been captured by MI5. Is that an easy case? What about less than waterboarding, but still more than what we'd be comfortable subjecting our soldiers to? Is that ok? If so, are the critics then saying it's ok for the U.S. to waterboard in analagous instances? I doubt it.

Ultimately, then, if waterboarding is immoral or bad policy, it shouldn't be because we're worried about other people doing it to us. We're worried about other people doing lots of things to us, many of which we do in some form or another, and that we certainly aren't willing to give up.

This does little to resolve the overall debate as to whether waterboarding works, or whether it's just so immoral that no one should ever do it. But I think it at least removes one terrible argument from the debate.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on April 24, 2009 (boomark / email).