In 1966, Bruce Brown released a movie titled The Endless Summer, which told the story of two guys scanning the globe to find the perfect spot to surfboard. We don't know whether Dick Cheney has seen it, but forty years later, he's been scanning the globe to find the perfect spot to waterboard. Bruce Brown has no regrets. Nor Cheney:
Q [WDAY-Radio, Oct. 24]: I've had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives....[T]his debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do agree. And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool....
Q: Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President 'for torture.' We don't torture....
But, as Walter Pincus of The Washington Post reported earlier this month, the US long ago acknowledged waterboarding to be just that: torture. The US has also long known that torture by waterboarding yields information of dubious value:
A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding....The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of "touchless torture" until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.
What's a little dunk in the water? No brainer! (If you surf.) Yes brainer! (If you waterboard.)
[Update, Oct. 27.] White House spokesman Tony Snow was asked today about Cheney's admission that he had approved waterboarding:
"'You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will,'' Snow said. ''You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on.''
We don't torture, and we don't slip up.
[PS. In the spirit of experimental moral philosophy, Keith DeRose, over at Generous Orthodoxy, reports on "An Hour--Plus a Few Minutes--of 'Little Ease'" (comments open)]
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