Chris Eberle on waterboarding and the Armed Forces Journal

Responding to Rob's recent post, Chris Eberle writes:

Rob Vischer notes that he has “zero expertise on national security issues,” but cites the editors of the Armed Forces Journal, who, he says, are credible and experienced, who assert that waterboarding is torture, and so concludes that waterboarding *is* torture.  I wonder though, on several counts.

First, I asked a Marine officer whose opinion I very much respect what he thinks of the Armed Forces Journal.  He didn’t know much about it, but when I, after checking the web site, informed him that the same folks who publish the Armed Forces Journal also publish the Army, Navy and Marine Corps Times, he was, to put it mildly, dismissive.  The latter three publications have no official or unofficial affiliation with the US military, and are, from his perspective, “the National Enquirer” of their respective services.  So a word of caution: just because some journal has is entitled “The Armed Forces Journal” doesn’t imply that its editors are “credible and experienced.”  Maybe they are, but there’s at least one very experienced and intelligent officer who uses its sister publications as “fish wrap.”

Second, the substance of the editorial is, at least, unpersuasive – to me.  In fact, it’s not clear that the editors even bothered to articulate an argument for their position – they just assert that waterboarding is both torture and ineffective.  Well, there is one argument: waterboarding inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death and is “therefore” an inherently flawed method of gaining information.  This is, to say the least, not an impressive argument!  Surely, threatening some people with the terror of imminent death works sometimes and doesn’t work other times.  The serious moral question, I think, is whether we should torture even if doing so is an effective means of protecting innocents.

Third, I wonder what MOJ readers think about the case of Lt Col Allen West.  The short version: the American military learned about a local policeman who had information about a potential attack, apprehended the policeman, Col West shot a pistol past the prisoner’s head, and threatened to shoot the policeman if he refused to divulge details about the plot.  The claim is that this policeman complied and the attack was averted.  (Here’s a link to one article file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/Desktop/EBERLE%20DOCUMENTS/West%20would%20make%20'sacrifice'%20again%20-%20The%20Washington%20Times%20Nation-/West%20would%20make%20'sacrifice'%20again%20-%20The%20Washington%20Times%20Nat.htm)

Did Col West ‘torture’ the Iraqi policeman?  He certainly threatened him with “the terror of imminent death.”  The question is, of course, not whether Col West acted correctly: he thought that he had acted correctly, but illegally, and so was justly punished for fulfilling his moral responsibilities to his troops.  I tend to agree with Col West.  But that’s not the question in which I’m interested.  Rather, did he torture the policemen – perhaps by virtue of threatening imminent death?  Is threatening with imminent death, as waterboarding does, always torture?  Subsidiarily, should he have been prosecuted for torture?

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