I was reading about the latest statements by President Bush regarding waterboarding, in answer to questions about the Mukasey nomination. These are summarized in yesterday's and today's Whitehouse press briefings. It seems to me that in fact, if you read these statements carefully, all questions about the status of waterboarding will have been answered. I'm going to go through the logic on this below, but the greater point is that if the Bush administration is saying what it means to say, and meaning to say it, then there is no real ambiguity about how they feel about waterboarding.
The first quote from the first pressing briefing I cited above is the President does not talk about any possible techniques that may or may not be used against captured terrorists when they are caught by the United States. Note that this was a direct response to a question about waterboarding.
A bit further down the page is the statement the CIA's program for interrogation is legal (in fact, that the techniques used are safe, they are effective, they are tough, and they are legal). In today's briefing, we also learn that the program has saved lives.
Taking the most recent statement first, the fact that the interrogation program has done something, namely, "saved lives", means that the program has been used, whatever it is. That is, this is not an abstraction, but something real.
Next, there is no question that, whatever the program is, the Whitehouse insists that it is legal. That is, there is a real, legal CIA interrogation program that is has saved lives.
And finally, we return to the first statement. Remember that it was issued in response to a question about waterboarding. It ostensibly explains why the briefer is refusing to answer. Therefore, given the context, the object of "talk about" (any possible techniques...) must be waterboarding. Otherwise, the sentence simply could not be interpreted. Is this point clear? Let me expand it a little.
Suppose we fill in a couple of things that might be the object of "talks about":
What does the president think about waterboarding?
- The president doesn't talk about waterboarding.
- *The president doesn't talk about cheeseburgers.
You see? Answer 1 is normal English, but answer 2 is extremely strange. I suppose that a sufficiently imaginative person could imagine a possible context for this (maybe cheeseburgers are somehow essential to CIA waterboarding style), but in general, an answer has to refer to the same thing the question does. Bottom line: ordinary rules of English discourse make it clear that any possible techniques that may or may not be used against captured terrorists when they are caught by the United States refers to waterboarding.
Why is this important?
Well, it means that waterboarding, according to the Whitehouse, is a "possible technique that may or may not be used, etc.". If we take that clause at face value, then there really isn't much doubt about its meaning. If CIA interrogators "may or may not" (that is, "optionally") use waterboarding, then waterboarding is part of the CIA interrogation program. As we have already seen, according to the Whitehouse, this is a real-life program that has already saved lives. And, we have also seen that the Whitehouse considers the program to be legal.
Therefore, according to the words issued by the Whitehouse, the Bush administration's position on waterboarding is that (1) it can be used at the option of CIA interrogators against people the administration considers to be terrorists; (2) the program as a whole, including the optional waterboarding, is effective ("it has saved lives"); and (3) the program as a whole, including optional waterboarding, is legal.
There is no ambiguity there.
There is a corollary that is already understood by most people. Torture is illegal. Since as we have just seen, waterboarding is considered by the Bush administration to be legal, then it follows that they do not consider waterboarding to be torture. In fact, I think that this corollary is where the whole process began. I think that the heavy thinkers on the Bush legal team, including Gonzales, started with the idea that maybe some interrogation techniques had been wrongly considered to be torture. After egging each other on for a while, they managed to convince each other that waterboarding is not, in fact, torture, and that it could therefore be so declared by executive order, and added to the interrogation battery. That's all pure speculation on my part, but it fits with the known facts.
I feel very certain that Judge Mukasey understands the English language as well as I do, and therefore, he knows very well what the administration policy is on waterboarding. Apparently, in spite of the fact that he considers waterboarding to be "repugnant", he is willing to come on board there anyway, and this inconsistency explains the whimpy answers he's given to senators on the question.