When Waterboarding Works

Byron York offers his thoughts.

About a year ago, I had dinner with a man who played a key role in the U.S. war on terror.

The talk turned to allegations of torture. He said that our policy should be that we do not torture. And we should adhere to that policy.

Unless, that is, a truly special situation comes up and we decide that we have to violate that policy in an extremely narrow set of circumstances./p>

Then, we explain what we did -- by that, I think he meant the executive branch would be open with members of Congress -- and move on.

What he couldn't understand was the determination, on the part of some lawmakers, to pass a law that would deal with any and all situations in the future. It's just not possible.

CIA interrogators tried a variety of techniques of escalating severity on Zubaydah. Each one had to be specifically authorized in advance at the highest levels of the CIA.

Still, Zubaydah resisted. Finally the interrogation worked its way up to waterboarding.

"Was it used on Zubaydah?" Ross asked Kiriakou.

"It was."

"And was it successful?"

"It was."

....

"So in your view the waterboarding broke him?" Ross asked.

"I think it did, yes."

"And did it make a difference?"

"It did. The threat information that he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

"No doubt about that? That's not some hype?"

"No doubt."

I've been having an argument with someone who describes himself as a professional interrogator with the Army. My major disagreement with him his his "utilitarian argument" -- "Torture Doesn't Work", he says. Not "hardly ever", not "is less effective than other methods", not even "extracts too high a price". "Doesn't work".

Well, if we take this premise as given, we can do the following logical analysis:
IF a procedure is torture, THEN it won't work.
Waterbording works.
THEREFORE (denial of the consequent) Waterboarding is not torture.

I'm glad that's settled.