The consensus that we should be a country that does not torture is almost universal, however, this consensus becomes clouded when we dig down and define what torture really is.  There is an excellent Blog on Townhall regarding the definition of torture and I refer people to it.

Certainly, there were really stupid actions that common sense should dictate you not do.  Placing women’s underwear on the heads of prisoners, putting insects in cells, humiliating naked prisoners, etc. may not be torture, but without question should be stopped.  These methods do nothing to extract anything useful and only serve to harden hatred against us.

It’s interesting how defining torture and the use of it changes with situation.  Conceptually, we can take a strong stand against all torture, but in every conversation, when I have personalized a situation, the definition of what is permissible is not so hard and fast.

For instance, if your wife or daughter was kidnapped and threatened with mutilation and death, what methods would you agree to use to seek her safe release. 

It seems the only thing now permissible is to ask “pretty please” tell us the information we seek.  Terrorists now have manuals telling them what to say if captured.  The first thing they are told to say is that they were tortured.  The manual points out that the leftish news media will jump all over it.  The terrorists laugh at us and our handwringing and think us weak. 

Would it be safe to say that captured terrorists most likely have information that would be helpful to us to prevent future bombings or attacks, as well as information about new tactics, new leadership, etc.   Is it safe to say if we extract that information it would help us in the “war that cannot be named?”

In the personal example above, how about doing something that would scare the perpetrator to the point that he would give up the information needed to rescue your wife or daughter, yet maintain our high moral position?

Water boarding does not kill, does not maim, does not cause any lasting negative effect on the subject person, and has proven effective in extracting information.   So why is it now being defined as torture? 

The left has a history of doing everything it can to weaken our ability to fight our enemies.  We can’t listen to the phone calls of terrorists from overseas or, follow money from terrorist sources without a warrant in advance and now we can’t use techniques that have proven to work in extracting information from terrorists.  If we find effective methods to gain strategic information, the New York Times is happy to warn the terrorist.

Drilling teeth, thumb screws, beatings, bamboo shoots under the fingernails, etc. are all torture and an abomination.  Cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head with a butcher knife, just as Khalid Sheik Mohammad, a top al Qaeda leader did, is an abomination.  Waterboarding this man resulted in information that prevented a planned terrorist attack on Los Angeles and also resulted in a huge amount of information on al Qaeda.  By the way, he’s just fine today sitting in jail awaiting his trial.

Would you use waterboarding to save your own wife or daughter?  As mentioned above, the U.S. used waterboarding and saved possibly hundreds if not thousands of wives and daughters as a result of waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammad.

There are so many things that don’t make sense in our society and categorizing waterboarding as torture is one of them.  When we use techniques that don’t kill, cause pain or permanent disfigurement, and the results save lives, we should be grateful that a civilized people have developed interrogation techniques that protect us and don’t compromise our moral standing.  There may have been methods used at black sites, etc. that should be prohibited, but putting waterboarding in that category makes no sense.