Torture

What to make of statements like these "Waterboarding is something of which every American should be proud.Waterboarding makes tight-lipped terrorists talk. At least three major al-Qaeda leaders reportedly have been waterboarded, most notably Khalid Sheik Mohammed."

OK, Deroy Murdock's material is conspiracy theory wing nut stuff in the National Review, but all the same people read his stumpy little sentences and might actually come round to his way of thinking. A scary thought. His argument is no more sophisticated than an episode of 24. There are terror suspects who know things - torture 'em till they squeal. "In short, there is nothing “repugnant” about waterboarding."

Waterboarding is a ancient Chinese form of torture that, as Murdock says, leaves no physical trace. One is tied to a table, one's mouth covered with a towel and water poured over your face. Sounds bearable almost theraputic only the sensation is akin to drowning and suffocating at the same time. No one can take more than two minutes. The psychological damage stays, as Hitchens reports (see below) and the information gathered subject to the qualification that people will say anything, anything to make it stop.

Further, Murdock has no proof for what he says. His argument centres on this "KSM’s revelations helped authorities identify and incarcerate at least six major terrorists:"

Now, 'helped' identify really isn't any good there at all. This modality reduces the impact whatever information the CIA got out of the terror suspect. It did not pinpoint the bomb just in time à la TV mini-series and as for the list of terrorists that follow, the only reference he gives to substantiate his claim, is a link to one of his own oped pieces. Hardly credible journalism.

The aim of torture is not primarily about information gathering, if at all, (and has been rejected by specialists in the field as an unreliable means of finding things out) but is about intimidating, frightening and humiliating a target population - Muslims - preparing the ground for future outrages and softening up the rest of the population by coarsening political practice and discourse. For once they have come for the Muslims and you have not spoken out, a chain of political narrative is set in motion that has at the end of it that 'when they came for you, there was no one left to speak out'.

Murdock's piece is a viscious glob of words unfit for publication outside a Right wing hate sheet.