Evangelicals most in favor of Torture?!

If I asked you what the MOST religious people thought about the morality of torture, what would you say? If you're like me, you'd assume they'd be MOST against practices like waterboarding and torture in general. But according to a new Pew study indicates you'd be wrong, as Evangelicals and regular church-goers in general are more likely to think torture is morally-justifiable than the general population.

One analyst speculates this is due to the fact that the Christian worldview includes salvation coming from the excruciating pain of our savior. Somehow, I suspect the explanation is a little more complex.

Scientists rejest use of their study to justify "Enhanced Interrogations"

It is perhaps no shock that many of the people whose work was cited in the recently declassified memos supporting torture methods at Gitmo are furious. One group of scientists are already saying their work was misinterpreted and that the memos are citing work that has no bearing on the topic of interrogation techniques.

The study in question by Kundermann, which was published in 2004 in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, found that people who were deprived of sleep for one night had an increased sensitivity to certain types of pain. Two Justice Department memos, dated May 10, 2005, cited this study as justification to conclude that severe sleep deprivation of up to 180 consecutive hours might cause some increased pain but not "severe physical pain" when used in conjunction with facial slaps, stress positions, water dousing and walling, in which a detainee is slammed against a flexible wall.

"Because sleep deprivation appears to cause at most only relatively moderate decreases in pain tolerance, the use of these techniques in combination with extended sleep deprivation would not be expected to cause severe physical pain," wrote Steven Bradbury, a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, who authored the memos.

Of course, this is the problem with classified analyses like this - no peer review, little oversight. I can't imagine being quoted in one of these memos, and hope that those who have been are not penalized for those who took their work out of context.

Calling a spade, a spade

This blog had been largely supportive of President George W. Bush during his years in office. While not all of us supported either the Iraq War or the policies around it, I generally have the president the benefit of the doubt in dealing with a difficult world after 9/11. Most of the pundit class felt free to begin tearing him down as soon as 9/12 was past, and I saw that as disingenuous and naive.

But now, it is time to speak plainly. I condemn the torture policies enacted by President Bush in the wake of 9/11, as shown by recent declassified memos. We knew "something" was going on in Gitmo, but assumed that it was not nearly as bad as what the Left speculated. Instead, it is pretty much exactly as bad as GWB's critics claimed. Regular, intensive, sadistic weatherboarding. Use of subject phobias in methods eerily similar to scenes from 1984. Methods that simply can not be rationalized away as NOT torture. Even in the panicky days after 9/11. And these methods appear to have continued up to a few months before the end of the administration. We have stained the American spirit with these actions in a way comparable to the Japanese internment camps of World War 2. The ends can never justify the means. By meeting evil with evil, you merely increase the darkness and terror in our land.

Being MOD-blog, we try to see both sides. And we have spoken for both sides on this issue. But now it is time to speak plainly, now that all the facts are known. This was a mistake, and a sin of our nation. I challenge anyone who has read the memos to tell me differently. And "You had to be there" is not a sufficient defense.

Waterboarding Experiment

About a year back now, one of our regular commenters asked us to honestly consider whether waterboarding was torture, and thus morally indefensible, or was simply a pressuring technique that was safe and useful for interrogating terrorists. You may recall Waterboarding is a technique use in Guantanamo Bay, among other places, where the subject is exposed to a stream of water which fools the body into thinking it is drowning, without actually stopping the airflow or threatening life or limb. John McCain has been unapologetic in calling it torture, while other high political officials see it as more like locking a prisoner in solitary confinement - difficult for the subject but ultimately humane.

At the time, we had some discussion and overall I think there was no resolution - it was simply beyond the experience of any Mod-Bloggers. Most of us have never been arrested, much less exposed to pressure techniques or torture. Now, however, The Straight Dope has up a posting from one of its members who has exposed himself voluntarily to two common waterboarding techniques under controlled conditions to see what happened. The verdict? Torture, pure and simple.

It seems that there is a point that is hardwired in us. When we draw water into our respiratory tract to this point we are no longer in control. All hell breaks loose. Instinct tells us we are dying.

I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You [b]know[b] you are dead and it's too late. Involuntary and total panic.

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It would be like telling you not to blink while I stuck a hot needle in your eye.

At the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved.

I never felt anything like it, and this was self-inflicted with a watering can, where I was in total control and never in any danger.

And I understood.

Waterboarding gets you to the point where you draw water up your respiratory tract triggering the drowning reflex. Once that happens, it's all over. No question.

Normally, I would be tempted to dismiss this as unproven and likely written by a partisan looking to make a point. But as I read through it, it really comes across as someone who tried it with no preconceptions - an idiot Mythbusters fan who thought it would be fun to prove it for himself. And I must say, he has just about convinced me that waterboarding is torture and morally indefensible.