A common statement from people like Rush Limbaugh and his many admirers and imitators is that the things done by the United States to its captives to coerce information are maybe "a little harsh" but nothing at all like "real" torture which is always stated to be something we haven't yet been confirmed to have actually done to someone. Furthermore, the things that HAVE been verified, whether waterboarding or the various festivities documented at Abu Ghraib, are dismissed as "not that bad" or "frat hazing" or whatever, something people would laugh off and forget about.
Here is the fallacy: One the one hand, the techniques used are supposed to be effective extracting information, after all that is the whole rationale for their use. (Even if effective I reject their use on moral grounds.) You are going to tell me that a technique is effective in getting someone to divulge information that will cause his best friends to die, but it's mild and not that bad? Something does not compute.
Stated from another site:
I think what it "comes down to" is logic like this being actually used by people not seeing how idiotic it is. We are to believe that the methods used aren't so bad. Frat pranks. Prisoners being made "uncomfortable" and scared. We are also to believe that it produces or has the potential to produce useful information. What you and other defenders are saying is that it's not THAT bad, yet somehow it will make a human being divulge information leading to the capture or possible death of his or her friends.
You can't have it both ways. Either the techniques are enough to make someone give up information that will aid their enemy and possibly kill people on their own side or they won't. Just how much would someone have to interrogate you before you gave the position of your unit? How much pain would you be willing to endure to keep your friends alive? And how are you special in that you would be able to hold that longer than the "enemy"? Because in training once they kind of sort of did it to you, but just enough to make you giggle? If it's not enough to make someone give up that kind of information, if it's just making them scared and uncomfortable, how is it not just glorified sadism?
By the way, as to waterboarding, here's a fairly good cinematic representation from the Robin Williams film "Jakob the Liar" courtesy of some guy on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeDGIqVvaLY
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