For Hitchens and others the issue seems to be whether to call waterboarding a form of torture. He writes, "I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."
Though settling whether to call it torture may ultimately affect the legality of the practice, from an ethical standpoint it does not matter what to call it. What does matter are the undisputed facts that waterboarding is both physically traumatic (to the point of being life-threatening), and psychologically destructive. On even the most permissive moral theories, waterboarding could be justified in only the most extreme cases where very great losses would be prevented by its application.
Given the current administration's insistence on secrecy with respect to all things related to the "war on terror," though, we simply have no way of knowing whether such exigent circumstances exist. This alone should be enough reason to oppose the practice, even if one isn't bothered by the question Hitchens raises: "It would be bad enough if you did have something ... but what if you didn't have anything? What if they'd got the wrong guy?"
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Imagine a crisis when time is short, e.g., authorities know a bomb is about to explode that will kill hundreds or thousands of innocents. Obviously, the alleged perpetrators have a strong commitment to their cause and its success or they would not have become part a terrorist conspiracy. Under the best of circumstances, torture rarely produces immediate results. Suspects will think that enduring a few moments of pain from torture to allow the mission to succeed is a small price to pay. Torture reinforces rather than erodes a suspect’s commitment to the cause. Under torture, even a dim-witted suspect will divulge false information, hoping to gain temporary relief from torture. Determining that information’s veracity requires sending the forces of good on a potential wild goose chase, wasting precious time and resources better spent searching for the bomb. Continuing to torture the suspect in the interim between the suspect divulging information and security forces proving that information false constitutes self-defeating behavior by the torturers. Without hope that information will end the torture, the suspect has no incentive to cooperate. Torture itself provides the suspect no reason to tell the truth; the imminent nature of the threat provides the terrorist with an incentive to provide disinformation. The terrorist must only stave off telling the truth long enough for the bomb to explode. This analysis relies upon several dubious assumptions: (1) that the apprehended suspect(s) knows the information necessary to prevent the catastrophe; (2) that the interrogators know how to torture without killing (e.g., the suspect dying of a heart attack before divulging the critical information); and (3) that interrogators, suspects, and any necessary equipment are all co-located. Bottom line: torture in the face of imminent danger is unlikely to yield information that will save the day and justify the evil employed.
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