The CIA’s waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown. “In our limited experience, extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new risks,” the CIA’s Office of Medical Services wrote in its 2003 memo. “Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness.”

But, you know, the suffering of the suspect is an unintended side effect of the primary act of acquiring life-saving information, so it’s all good under the principal of double effect…

He passes on a post from Peter McDermott calling on liberals to take some lessons from Irish soccer fans: work together and don’t boo against the home team.

The problem with this advice is the assumption that the “home team” is one’s political alliance.

How many evils in the past have been fueled by Catholics cheering on the “home team” of their political party as they pursued evil policies like aggressive wars, increases access to abortion, embryo-destroying research, and most recently, the embrace of torture.

The last thing Catholics need to do right now is intensify their loyalty to their political teams. Instead, we need to re-consider what team we’re on.

Which sounds absurd at first, but not after you give it some thought. A doctor trying to pinpoint an injury might poke and prod and request the patient perform different movements, and use the patient’s pain response to make a diagnosis.

And it doesn’t seem to be an example of double effect. The treatment of the injury is distinct from the diagnosis. The patient’s pain is a means to the end of treating the injury. And it is intended.

Ok, so we’ve established that intentionally causing pain is not intrinsically evil. So how can we say that waterboarding is torture, and torture is intrinsically evil?

Well, a couple things:

• While it is true that the pain in a diagnostic situations is intended, the diagnostic activity would still make sense if there were efforts to minimize the pain. For the purposes of the diagnostic exercise, a moderate or mild pain response is as good as a severe one.
• The pain caused is related to the pain of the original injury. The clinician doesn’t attempt to cause left leg pain to treat a right arm injury.

In essence, this is similar to why theraputic amputation is licit.

So what does this tell us about interrogation?

Well that establishing that a technique causes pain is not sufficient to establish that it is torture or evil. However:

• The pain must be related to the secret.
• The technique must nor be dependent on the severity of the pain caused

In other words, simulating drowning is not a valid response to someone holding a secret we’d very much like to know.

Intensifying the pain of maintaining the secret may be licit. Making the suspect clear of what the consequences of holding this information is may be licit.

Waterboarding during SERE training may be licit for related reasons. The trainer is working on strengthening the trainee’s resistance to these techniques. It is not for some different purpose.

It occurs to me that this debate is working on the head when it needs to work on the heart.

Those opposed to waterboarding assert it is intrinsically immoral. Those supporting it respond that some other activity that shares some characteristics with waterboarding or torture is obviously not intrinsically evil, so how can torture be? And around we go again

I should also mention that MZ posted a long response to the Toelfson article at Vox Nova.

Yesterday, I found the idea of “man on dog” sex repellent. This morning, though, same-sex couples finally got the right to marry in Washington, DC and ever since then, I’ve been finding it more and more appealing. Indeed, I’ve been googling up box turtle porn all afternoon.

Har Har Har.

But as arguments go, this resides in the same category as, “We just had a big snowstorm. Global warming must be a hoax!”

To see why, let’s look at another example.

Last year, as a result of a funding shortfall Metro St. Louis enacted some draconian cuts in service.

And during that time…. life went on, pretty much as normal as far as I can tell. I’m sure those who were reliant on the service faced hardships, but life in St. Louis did not come to a screeching halt until the Missouri legislature provided some funding to restore some of the service.

Does this represent a case against the upcoming ballot initiative for a sales tax to make this permanent? I tend to think not.

The case against same sex marriage is not reliant on the world ending, or people marrying box turtles the day it is enacted. It is that it is an additional step in weakening the link between marriage and children, which is likely to have effects that will take a long time to play out.

So, yes, I don’t think any Washingtonians woke up this morning with a strange new respect for bestiality. That doesn’t mean enacting same sex marriage was wise.

Contrast this with a US ceremony, say the one for the US bobsled team (for which I couldn’t find on online video). When the American anthem starts, it’s the end of fun. Everyone must stand at attention, and solemnly watch the flag rise.

Obviously, the games being in Canada mean that US gold medal ceremonies aren’t going to turn into a sing-a-long. But I don’t recall US gold medal ceremonies in Salt Lake City or Atlanta being so purely joyous.

Some possibilities:

• The US flag and anthem has a lot more baggage than the Canadian anthem and flag, especially in recent years.
• Which probably partly explains the difference between Canadian patriotism and American patriotism. Canadian patriotism seems like genuine love of country. American patriotism feels compulsory, like being nice to the boss.
• Then there’s the anthems themselves. The Star-Spangled Banner is famously difficult to sing, and focuses exclusively on a single battle, whereas O Canada celebrates much of the country, and only tangentially refers to war.

I’m rooting for the US in today’s hockey game, but I have to admit the gold medal ceremony will be more fun if Canada wins.

First, let me say that the symposium in specific, and National Review’s endorsement of torture in general, are despicable. The symposium itself seems to be a “Coalition for Fog,” more trying to hopelessly cloud the issue than mounting a clear defense of it. Moving on…

MM tacks on this cricticism of Franciscan University Professor Patrick Lee’s entry:

Lee finishes with an adolescent rant about those damned ”lib-uh-rals” who have only lately discovered the concept of moral absolutes. He fails to realize that he is engaging in the exact same kind of moral relativism. It’s incredible that a chaired professor at Franciscan University could deliver such a diatribe.

Wow, that must be some awful stuff… Let’s take a look:

Liberals have for decades not only denied that there are moral absolutes (specific, exceptionless moral norms) but also denied even the existence of objective moral truth — and have labeled defenders of such moral truths “right-wing extremists.” Have they now seen the light? If so, then perhaps we can now discuss not only why torture is wrong, but also the moral truth regarding intentionally killing unborn human beings, denying unborn human beings equal protection under the law, funding research that involves deliberately dismembering some human beings for the benefit of others, and attempting to coerce health-care workers to violate their consciences.

Torture is wrong — but if, and only if, every human being possesses a profound and inherent personal dignity.

Wait a minute… Isn’t this essentially the “consistent ethic of life” or “seamless garment” position? Isn’t this just the mirror image of the “pro-lifers don’t care about children once they’re born” argument, except not quite as personally nasty?

Lee’s paragraph isn’t moral relativism; it expresses a hope that a discussion of torture would lead to a more frank discussion of abortion and embryonic research.

Wouldn’t this be a good thing for a pro-life Catholic? If not, why not?

In 2009, the Phillies deemed it necessary to trade for another ace starting pitcher in midseason. In four postseason starts, Hamels never got out of the sixth inning. His turn in the rotation would have been up for a Game 7, but if the Phillies had forced it, they would have seriously considered other options.

Yet, many sabermetricians would have you believe that there really was no substantial difference between the 2008 Hamels and the 2009 Hamels, and anyone who think differently is stuck on silly narratives and debunked stats.

To which I respond: are you serious?

I understand that the MSM memes are annoying — Hamels had a rough year and needs to come back strong; David Eckstein is a gritty, gutty player. A-Rod doesn’t come through in the clutch. And so on…

But there is a kernel of truth to each of these, and they are fun to talk about.

When a pitcher goes from being a mortal lock in one postseason to a liability the next, people are going to look for explanations. And random fluctuations in opposing batting average on balls in play isn’t going to satisfy.

And that’s what make sports fun.

I’m sure it’s possible that the difference between the 2008 and 2009 Hamels can be entirely attributed to factors beyond Hamels’s control. I also know that I would need to accept pretty heavy odds in order to bet on the 2009 Hamels over the 2008 Hamels. And that it’s interesting to discuss why.

Previous posts of Marc’s should make it clear that he does not see himself as either an advocate of torture or a dissenter from Catholic teaching. Rather, he does not interpret the inviolable norm against torture as encompassing waterboarding and the other interrogation techniques at issue. Even if he is wrong in his interpretation of the Catechism — which is by no means clear — he is not “disregarding” it.

Would that Thiessen’s error was in simply disregarding Church teaching!

No, what Thiessen is doing is much more dangerous — he is twisting Church teaching to support his preferred practice, causing great scandal and confusion that will take a lot of work to undo.

And, no, it is clear that Thiessen’s interpretation of the Catechism, and Church teaching on this issue, is wrong.

Sadly, Ramesh’s statement acknowledging the theoretical possibility that Thiessen’s interpretation is incorrect, seems to be the strongest statement against waterboarding one can find at NRO, along with a host of commentary supporting it. For a publication that employs a number of Catholics, and once had something of a Catholics identity, this is a disgrace.*

*UPDATE: I am pleased to report that the commentary Ponnuru was responding to was published on NRO by Mike Potemra, ad includes this:

I think torture is a great evil, and that the resort to it in the past decade is a black spot on America’s record.

and my general swipe at NRO is not operational. My RSS feed of The Corner filters for only certain authors (to which I may now add Potemra), so I had not seen the original post, and had incorrectly assumed it came from elsewhere.

(more…)

Saletan concludes from the absence of any mention of health problems for the baby that the induction was for the mother’s health. He also asserts that inducing at 32 weeks is a risky thing to do for the baby.* This conflicts with the Tebow story that you should persevere no matter what.

Now, Saletan is pro-choice, but is usually fair. Though he’s not above the occasional cheap shot.

So, I’m not sure if he means this piece to be a Kinsleyesque consistency gotcha. The subhead, “the pro-life case for pregnancy termination” suggests as much, though I’m pretty sure Saletan doesn’t write the headlines.

If it is, then I’m not sure what the point is. Usually the point of a consistency argument is to demonstrate that the target does not hold a position for the reasons it claims, but for some other, less noble reason. For abortion, it is typically used to demonstrate that pro-life people aren’t really pro-life, but just want to control women and their sexuality.

But this case doesn’t get there. In one case, the pro-life group applauds Pam Tebow for carrying her dangerous pregnancy to term. In another case the pro-life movement promotes a story of women who were induced early, perhaps for their own health. And this proves….. what, exactly?

If anything, I would think this would be complimentary to pro-lifers, since it demonstrates that we don’t have this cartoonish fetish to fetuses above all else. We acknowledge that there is some balancing between the health of the mother and the fetus. We’re not the caricatures you’ve made us out to be.

But that’s not the tone the piece takes, it reads more like a Gotcha! piece. I suspect it’s because Saletan doesn’t care for Pam Tebow’s brand of being pro-life. But I don’t think her message is that mothers must be willing to sacrifice themselves to carry their pregnancies to full term. It’s that she decided to devote herself to carrying her child, and she’s glad she did.

The main difference is that the procedure Pam Tebow refused was abortion, and the procedure the other women accepted was induction. Which leads to the astounding conclusion that pro-life people oppose abortion!

But I’ll stipulate these points for the sake of this post.