But the leap to say that because torture is not justified that waterboarding is therefore not justified does not logically follow. Torture needs to be defined and during the Bush administration, it was not defined as torture. I summarize my views here. I am open to being convinced it is torture. But heck, in very extreme cases, I can't rule out even torture. Although obviously, that doesn't mean all clear methods of torture should be allowed even then. I don't even know what extreme scenario that might be, since I think it is morally wrong. But I'm not willing to rule it out.
And as I note, we can even rule out waterboarding even if we never define it as torture. Really. We could do that. Indeed, the Bush administration only used the method on a very small number of high value detainees. So even though we then thought it was legal, it was harsh enough to be a rare measure.
If waterboarding is torture, why aren't the anti-waterboarding people who waterboard volunteers being charged with crimes? I mean, you couldn't get away with protesting executions by the state with your own private electrocutions of volunteers outside a court house, now could you?
I'll start believing that waterboarding is really torture when these guys are serving time for crimes rather than just being photo ops during their protests:
Picture from the linked article from The Boston Globe.
Admittedly, the one shown above isn't really waterboarding because they are pouring water on the volunteer's forehead, as far as I can tell. But during the Bush administration, protesters were far more committed and I remember visuals of more accurate volunteer waterboardings.
I mean really, protesters have carried out far more waterboardings than our government agents. How criminal can it be?
