Morality? I thought we agreed to trash the concept. In fact, I was under the impression we treated each other as if under some contractual agreement. “You don’t kill me, I don’t kill you.” “You don’t steal my stuff, I won’t steal yours.”
Well, Al Qaeda and pals don’t respect such an ideal. They will amputate your arm, use a power drill on you, and after it’s all over, remove your head with a sawing like motion. They will place bombs and use death squads in ways to ensure maximum civilian casualties. I would be happy to see them send a diplomat to work with the US on a treaty dealing with the treatment of prisoners, ours and theirs. Yes, it would be great to see them agree to respect more humane rules of combat and such. But, they haven’t and won’t.
So, if we live under a social structure of “I won’t do this, if you don’t do that,” the unspoken agreement has been breached by the enemy in the most absolute brutal ways. There isn’t a formal or unspoken contract here. There never will be.
Now, if the argument is about morality, it’s a tough one. Watching the body count continue to mount, as a bombing/death squad cell continues to operate, while a top Lt. of that group sits uncooperative in a cell…Where’s the morality in that? What’s moral about dozens, hundreds, or thousands more dying while the guy with names and locations sit defiantly in a cell, praising Allah for his brothers’ continued attacks?
If I was to receive yet another market bombing report about the guy’s group, while knowing he’s getting his recreation time in at that very moment, I damn sure wouldn’t feel like I was doing the moral thing. Thirty seconds of water-boarding, or who knows how many more successful bombings and deaths/maimings?
I would kill or maim the enemy about to detonate a bomb in the middle of a market. So, I just don’t have any qualms about water-boarding the guy who helped arm this man, who knows who he is and where he might be, and where he may strike. In such a situation he IS actively aiding his brother in killing the next mob of civilians. Now, this is assuming conventional interrogations are reasonably exhausted, or if a deadly attack is imminent in which techniques relying on an extended amount of time are just not possible.
Merely as punishment? Never, ever.
To gather information so as to thwart conventional military operations (i.e. attacks aimed solely at our military?)
Never. If combatants aim to keep it between combatants, all efforts to treat the enemy as a conventional prisoner should be taken.
To rescue a US soldier being held in humane conditions (as opposed to dismemberment and being dragged through the street)? Never.
Those are not the kind of things were waterboarding even becomes a possibility to me.