Politicians ranting against waterboarding cite Senator John McCain’s actual torture by the North Vietnamese nearly every time, before or after which they pontificate about redeeming America in the eyes of the world and about how “torture” does not work. Their usual spiel is, “Everyone I talk to says torture does not work.” Yet I agree with Deroy Murdock’s assessment: placing plastic wrap over a terrorist’s face, tilting them back, and pouring water over their face to cause them to panic and start talking, while placing them in no actual danger, is nowhere near torture or what McCain experienced. And by the way, waterboarding works:
With all due respect and appreciation for what McCain endured as a P.O.W., a 35-second interval of discomfort for someone who possesses information on active conspiracies to murder Americans is hugely different from months or years of being hung from a wall for trying to protect South Vietnam from Communism. McCain should understand this, but does not. What the Viet Cong did to him was abominable. What America did to Zubaydah, KSM, and an unidentified third terrorist leader was a necessary, rare, and non-injurious tactic for preserving human freedom and protecting the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent American civilians. Unlike McCain, Zubaydah and KSM survived this treatment without scars or damaged joints. Not a bad trade-off.
McCain contends that waterboarding is unreliable, since detainees will say anything to make it stop. Yes, they will say anything. As Zubaydah and KSM prove, they even will tell the truth. The veracity of such statements easily can be verified by following leads that such terrorists offer. If other terrorists pop up in spots where detainees said to look for them, then waterboarding once again will have worked.
McCain also argues that America must reject waterboarding, lest our enemies waterboard U.S. GIs. This notion gets all wet when one realizes how difficult it is to waterboard someone who Islamofascists already have beheaded.
Waterboarding should remain in America’s interrogation toolbox. The alternative is to let these assassins stay tight-lipped while the civilized world sits around and waits for the bombs to rip. This is exactly what happened on December 11. While official Washington again burst into tears over waterboarding and fretted over the CIA’s foolishly erased interrogation tapes, al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa killed 37 in twin bombings in Algeria. Al-Qaeda murdered 17 at a target it dubbed “the international infidels den” — the Algiers office of a New York-based peace organization called the United Nations.
Read Murdock’s full commentary. Keep in mind that the good many examples he cites of how effective waterboarding was (before we stopped using the technique) are just the ones we know about.