I know I shouldn’t spend my time responding to stuff like this. I know it. But I just can’t stand it. Here is torture advocate Andrew McCarthy writing at National Review:
Here is a thought experiment I have been using for many years as we’ve debated this topic….If you take everyone in America who is serving a minor jail sentence of say, 6 to 18 months, and you [ask] them whether they’d rather serve the rest of their time or be waterboarded….how many would choose waterboarding? I am guessing, conservatively, that over 95 percent would choose waterboarding.
….So ignore the blather about how enhanced interrogation is “not who we are.”
Give him credit: there’s no legalistic blather here. Just straight up advocacy of torturing enemy combatants. Full stop.
But here’s a thought experiment for McCarthy. Suppose any other country in the world did what we did. Waterboarding. Sleep deprivation. Physical abuse. Stress positions. Rectal feeding. Nudity. Extreme heat and cold. All for months or years in an effort to turn prisoners into broken husks. Let’s say that it was Putin’s Russia or Khamenei’s Iran, and the victims were American captives. What would you call it then? Enhanced interrogation?
I doubt it. You’d call it torture, and you’d loudly insist that it was barbaric and an act of war. And you’d be right. Or am I missing something?
