Wow, not a single person here thinks waterboarding is torture? I've also seen video of Christopher Hitchens being waterboarded, he lasted a similarly short amount of time.

I'm pretty shocked no one considers it torture. I'm guessing if you had it done to you, you would feel differently.

I'm also fairly surprised that everyone believes life is like an episode of 24, where torturing the bad guy is going to magically save lives. Because that guy they sent to be a suicide bomber would have been filled in on the details of their next operation.

We convicted Japanese after WWII for waterboarding... double standards are a good way to make lots of people hate us. People hating us makes it much easier for terrorists to do their work, get financed, etc. I say that waterboarding has made us less safe.

But hooray for feeling like you're getting some retribution, I guess. I'm tired of people taking "common sense" approaches to things, with no regard for the complexity and longevity of the repercussions. We are still paying for what we did to install the Shah in Iran, still paying for supporting Saddam against Iran, still paying for our blind support of Israel. Are we still going to be paying a price 50 years from now?

H.