Torture..

[Mudhammam]

What is torture?

If torture is causing physical pain as punishment or to force someone to say or do something then waterboarding isn't torture. It really sucks to be water boarded.....but its not painful.

If torture is causing mental or physical discomfort as punishment or to force someone to say or do something then waterboarding is torture. But being in prison would cause me mental and physical discomfort...so if I use this definition I have to conclude that incarceration is also torture.

I accept both definitions.

Abandonment to a prison cell doesn't inevitably lead to death, whereas if waterboarding continues uninterrupted the person has as much of a chance of drowning to death as anyone who is actually stranded in the middle of a lake. The question is not whether or not waterboarding is torture. Of course it is. It's why we hung Japanese interrogators after WWII.

That being said, if we're forced to choose between torture and collateral damage, I would have to say the former is less unethical and should be employed if, and only if, there is substantive reason to believe that when done the possibility of the latter will be removed.