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?"
