Interesting article on National Review about waterboarding. Part of me still thinks it's got to be a parody, but no... Deroy Murdock falls into a familiar trap, justifying torture--sorry, interrogation methods--based on their theoretical success in deterring terror. Deroy even suggests that "Waterboarding is something of which every American should be proud." At the risk of Godwining myself, I would like to say, welcome to 1939, Deroy. Hitler called, he wants his logic back.

Now, I am not an expert on interrogation techniques or torture. I have never been tortured. Probably the worst pain I've ever experienced was getting a molar crowned. But someone who has endured torture says that waterboarding is torture, so I'm inclined to adopt his opinion (no matter what else he may be wrong about). Regardless of the semantics and hair-splitting on this issue, however, I am much more concerned with Deroy's logic than with his nomenclature.

You see, Deroy thinks that the ends justify the means. His extended apologetic fulmination boils down to an argument that "Waterboarding has worked quickly, causing at least one well-known subject to break down and identify at least six other high-profile, highly bloodthirsty associates before they could commit further mass murder." In short: Deroy doesn't care if it's torture or not, if it's right or wrong, if it's moral or immoral. He only cares that we catch terrorists, quickly.

Even if it means occasionally torturing--sorry, interrogating--an occasional innocent? So it would seem. Deroy's logic does not draw any lines between torture and interrogation, because Deroy would presumably support any tort...interrogation technique that delivered results.

(Always assuming it's endorsed by a Republican president, I suppose--will Republicans flip-flop on torture if they lose the White House? Count on it.)

At any rate, Deroy's approach is hugely problematic. It is grossly utilitarian. It strains credulity. We should not justify things simply because they are effective. We as a country cannot afford to lose the moral high-ground, to lower ourselves to the level of the terrorists we are supposedly out to stop. In protecting our country, we have an ethical responsibility not to become the thing we hate most. Rest assured, there are plenty of other ways to preserve our country without undermining its founding principles.

I would strongly encourage Republicans everywhere to eschew attitudes like Deroy's and denounce, not merely torture, but any interrogation technique with a resemblance to torture. Let's stop splitting hairs; we're better than this. We do not need waterboarding, and we do not need to huddle clannishly and bleat, "My President, right or wrong." If we cannot keep the moral high ground, we will quickly find ourselves drowning in a sea of hatred and contempt.

And that is one kind of drowning you cannot simulate.