One of the lowest points in the debate over the use of waterboarding torture came this month, as Senator Lindsey Graham, co-sponsor of Torture Amendment 1157, justified waterboarding in spite of the testimony of an FBI agent that the torture technique had not been effective. “One of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work,” said Senator Graham.
Senator Graham ought to have thought about this idea before he let it escape through his lips. The truth is that the history of waterboarding is a history of centuries of failure.
When waterboarding was used to force confessions of witchcraft, was it successful? No, unless you consider a false confession a form of success. Does Lindsey Graham really believe all those people were really witches?
More broadly, waterboarding became infamous as a method of torture when it was used by the Inquisition. The goal of the Inquisition was to quash religious heresy and maintain the absolute control of Europe by the Catholic Church. Was it successful? Not in the slightest. Most Europeans today are not Catholics. The use of waterboarding by the Catholic zealots of the Inquisition actually fueled anti-Catholic sentiment and helped lead to the eventual withering of Catholicism in Europe.
Senator Graham is right about one thing: Waterboarding has used for hundreds of year. However, the persistence of waterboarding torture isn’t due to its success. Rather, waterboarding has continued, in spite of its overwhelming failure, because waterboarding is emotionally appealing to the leaders of autocratic regimes, and to groups of people who value vengeance over freedom.
