Nathan Sheets

Currently in the United States there is quite a bit of controversy over our country's only form of torture used on enemies. It's called waterboarding, and I am perfectly willing to concede that waterboarding is, in fact, a form of torture. Does that mean I'm against it? No, of course I'm not.

Conservatives have continued to insist that waterboarding is not torture because, well, we approve of it, and torture is "bad", so it couldn't possibly be torture. I used to be on that bandwagon, but after doing some reading on waterboarding, I see absolutely no reason why it should not be considered torture. And for that matter, I see no reason why we shouldn't do it. Believe me, if you were ever to be tortured, this is the kind of torture you would want.

When people think of torture, they think automatically of unjust torture, being done by a corrupt government or religious oligarchy to obtain information out of a person or, perhaps, to merely punish them. We see Gary Larson's Far Side or we think of Amnesty International's work.
Amnesty International has taken the stand, along with a lot of other people, that torture is morally wrong at the most basic level (while, ironically, taking the stand that abortion is a basic, fundamental right). At first it makes sense. But really, especially in relation to waterboarding, I don't see how torture is any more wrong than, say, jailing someone for years until they confess to a crime.

It's interesting to note that the people at Guantanamo on whom the United States has used waterboarding were not random people who were disliked by the leaders of our country: they were known Muslim terrorists, whose macho, "Allah, bitch!" attitude was quickly drowned out (no pun intended) when we started pouring water on their faces. They sang like birds and, because of their confessions and leaks of information, attacks that were meant to kill several thousand Americans have been thwarted.

Take, for instance, the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed captured in Pakistan in March of 2003. One of the masterminds of 9/11 and al-Qaeda’s operational leader at the time, he possessed a wide-ranging knowledge of the network’s plans, logistics and personnel. Unwilling to share it voluntarily, he was subjected to forced interrogation. As resilient as he was and defiant, he held out until the interrogators decided to proceed with waterboarding. Two and a half minutes into the procedure, a broken Mohammed begged for relief. Stunned and shaken, his extensive confession amounted to nothing less than a treasure trove of priceless intelligence.

This case is unusual not in how quickly the waterboarding worked, but how long Mohammed was able to withstand it. Two and a half minutes is by all accounts a record of sorts, as most subjects usually break down inside a minute. CIA agents who undergo this procedure as part of their training rarely last more than 40 seconds. This despite the fact that they are in a friendly environment and know that death is not an option. --Vasko Kohlmayer, FrontpageMag.com

Republicans trying to make a distinction between "torture" and "harsh interrogation measures" has proved to be pointless in that many people still view waterboarding as torture, again because of the visions of dungeons and tables with spikes from the medieval era that the word "torture" produces.

Ann Coulter points out that, yes, there is a moral problem with torturing people that you don't like. But torturing people that you know for sure are withholding information from you "actually works quite well". Indeed, the question is: why are they being tortured?

America is at war with terrorists, and yet liberals (and John McCain, incidentally) do not want to use the most effective way of saving American lives that we have. That way happens to be waterboarding, which has no lasting health effects and lasts, at most, two minutes. It can break the most cocky Muslim, as it did with K.S. Mohammad. Indeed, many are now even calling for Guantanamo to be shut down and terrorists to be either released or put in the United States, all because of waterboarding!

If you think that thousands of innocent lives could be saved by torturing someone that is a) planning to kill them personally or 2) is involved in the plot to kill them for an entire two minutes is morally wrong, I'd have to ask why. We're not cheese-grating them to death, or pulling their bodies apart with rhinos. We're putting them in pain for a minute so they'll be broken and spill the information that will save countless lives. Have Americans already forgotten the horror of September 11th?

Ann Coulter's father passed away last week. In her most recent, rather somber column, you can read about him. Something that struck me was this:

When I was bombarded with arguments for baby-killing as a kid, I asked Father about the old chestnut involving a poverty-stricken, unwed teenage girl who gets pregnant. (This was before they added the "impregnated by her own father" part.) Father just said, "I don't care. If it's a life, it's a life." I'm still waiting to hear an effective counterargument.

What parents teach their children is vital to what their children will believe when they get older. Will we teach them not to compromise on life, as Coulter's father did, or will we allow the world to teach them the worldly way of thinking: that abortion is not black and white and that there are shades of both, especailly with the kids of rapists.

American Thinker has a great article about Huckabee by Selwyn Duke, expressing my thoughts exactly:

When evangelicals embraced Jimmy Carter during the 1976 presidential campaign, they didn't know he would repudiate the Southern Baptist Convention a generation later.  Today the very same constituency has glommed onto Mike Huckabee, and I can't help but lament how history truly does repeat itself. 

One can see why the man I dubbed "Huck the Huckster" would appeal to evangelicals.  He's a pro-life Southern Baptist minister with charm, wit and a good-ol'-boy, yuck-it-up style.  Yet this resplendent exterior only serves to obscure the stain of liberal sin.

Huck would be a disaster - a disaster - on immigration...

Back in my pre-Republican days, I would have fainted in womanly horror had someone told me that I would have the stance on immigration that I have today. That is, that people don't have an inherent right to be here. That is, I believe that the border needs to be enforced, not just for security, but on principle. America is a club—a really nice club compared to most other countries (to quote blogger Julia Gorin: "There's really no need for other countries!")—and people need to fill out the proper paperwork to be here. If one wants to come be a leech on our welfare programs, fine, just do it the legal way at least.

And while, of course, I'm a pro-life only voter (and I like that aspect about Huckabee—BUT SEE BELOW!), I do have to say that a pro-illegal immigration president such as him would be ghastly. It would be bad enough giving them all amnesty, but with him nothing would be done to solve the problem of border crossings—and something desperately needs to be done.

That said, Ann Coulter, in an interview recently, talked about a judge that Huckabee got through to one of the circuit appeals courts and who he would likely nominate for the Supreme Court who declared that anti-abortion signs (of any kind, I believe) should be banned from highways because they are "offensive". That's screwed up. You can't just choose an issue and declare signage on it offensive while ignoring every other issue out there.