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Looking back through this thread I am having some trouble wrapping my head around how the question of what waterboarding fundamentally is is somehow escaping a decisive answer.
Forget the details. Waterboarding is the infliction of pain and terror for the purpose of extracting information. What possible definition of torture could exclude that activity? The only way this is possible is if the person answering the question is committed to the idea that 'torture' is by definition something done to us, whereas we by definition do not torture, and for this reason we must tweak the definition of torture in a way that emphasizes for all to see that what we do is not as bad as what they do and therefore cannot be classified as torture.
If you want to claim that waterboarding is justified, go ahead. I am more than willing to engage you in conversation about whether we can execute the form of torture known as waterboarding and still retain the moral high ground. But the therapeutic attempt to redefine the terms of debate in a way that leaves intact your increasingly dissonant framework of self-righteousness.... this seems to me kind of pathetic.
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