Talk:Waterboarding

Torture was ‘the norm’ in the North[ern Ireland], says university lecturer

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/torture-was-the-norm-in-the-north-says-university-lecturer-1.3185382

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Dry drowning doesn't exist, apparently?

Just reading and cross referencing some articles. Apparently dry drowning is medically discredited - I suggest perhaps adding a snippet in there, as the drowning article it links to includes the statement that the concept is non-existent in the very lede. When two articles are inconsistent with one another on such a crucial element such as the reality of a claim it's probably best we bring them both in line with each other. At present it appears this article is protected, and as I'm on a public computer I can't login, so here's hoping someone who sees this will make the requisite changes and include the two links provided on the Drowning page, as I have included above and will again here 121.210.33.50 (talk) 15:44, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

References

A fresh look: is the question of 'is waterboarding torture' really a settled question?

First of all, no court of competent jurisdiction, anywhere in the world, has officially ruled that the CIA's waterboarding of three Al-Qaeda detainees was in fact "torture." This is the threshold we observe and firmly enforce when writing about living persons. And Gina Haspel is a living person.

Second, there have been many developments and new articles written since this question was addressed. All of the sources I've read, which are not clearly biased in favor of the left, describe this as "enhanced interrogation" or "harsh interrogation." The fact that it is "controversial" is always mentioned, and "some experts believe that the CIA waterboarding technique is torture" is the sort of third-or-fourth-paragraph way to address the issue that I have consistently seen. Only intensely biased sources come right out in the first sentence and say "Waterboarding is torture," period, full stop.

The nomination and successful confirmation of Haspel as CIA director has generated a fresh wave of articles on the subject. I've conducted an extensive review and this is what they're saying: "Waterboarding is enhanced interrogation. It's controversial. Some legal experts insist that it's torture."

Don't pretend that the current lede sentence identifies a settled question. Wikipedia has pretended this is a settled question for 11 years. It isn't. And it never was. Only by focusing on a group letter signed by 115 left-wing law professors, most of whom are experts in patent law or family law or criminal defense, and treating it as 115 separate sources were the editors of 2007 able to pretend that a "consensus of experts" had been reached, as if that matters.

The Obama Justice Department, whose leadership was hand-picked by Barack Obama after he had campaigned on a "waterboarding is torture" platform, refused to discipline John Yoo and Jay Bybee for providing legal opinions that CIA waterboarding is not torture. The Justice Department refused to refer the matter to the state bar disciplinary commissions where Yoo and Bybee were licensed. In other words, Barack Obama's DOJ officially determined that Yoo and Bybee had not engaged in professional misconduct in advising the CIA on the legality of waterboarding.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013001411.html

This is as close as we're ever going to get to an official determination on the matter, and it flies in the face of those who claim "waterboarding is torture." I hope that we can have a civil conversation about this and reach a conclusion that establishes Wikipedia as a completely unbiased source on the matter. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 16:18, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Phoenix and Winslow:, thanks for your post, which has given me the opportunity to re-review some of the more recent reporting and scholarship. The consensus at the top of the talk page (based on Talk:Waterboarding/Sources) is that "waterboarding is a form of torture." When a U.S. court evaluates waterboarding, this will be taken into account and may be grounds to re-evaluate this consensus; however, international courts, NGOs, legal scholars, etc. may continue to disagree. Absent a U.S. court decision, we will continue to rely on published analysis by legal scholars and other reliable sources, the balance of which currently assert that waterboarding is torture. It is perhaps worth noting that several U.S. courts have been blocked from examining these questions by the state secrets privilege; the U.S. government invoked national security concerns to block lawsuits from proceeding, such as here (2010) and here (2017).

Regarding your second point, there is a section on Enhanced interrogation techniques#Decision not to prosecute exploring the Obama administration DOJ's decision not to prosecute, which is attributed to political considerations (avoiding backlash from the CIA/NSA/military) and not to unanswered questions over when pouring water into a shackled human's airways crosses over from ill-treatment to torture. As the article mentions, specific rationale not to prosecute other torture cases (including the cases of Rahman and al-Jamadi, who died while being mistreated in custody) has not been disclosed. As to the legal opinions permitting waterboarding: the Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury memos have all been attacked as "cherry-picking" and flawed legal reasoning (i.e. starting with a pre-determined conclusion and working backwards, while excluding precedents to the contrary), in particular for Yoo and Bybee. These criticisms were present in the OPR's report. The subsequent decision (at odds with the OPR's conclusions) not to refer Yoo & Bybee to their respective bar associations for disciplinary review was not made by a judge, but by David Margolis, a DOJ career official (not a political appointee).

(Margolis's report and his actions were examined by Scott Horton writing for Harpers. He argues that the decision to allow Yoo and Bybee to avoid potential disbarment or criminal prosecution was made to evade accountability for the DOJ, stating Margolis's report does not adequately address the merits of the OPR's complaints. Similar conclusions were reached by David D. Cole (now-director of the ACLU) in two separate pieces for Georgetown Law and New York Review Books, who went further, and by David Luban at Slate.)

As argued on the EIT page by a former member of the Obama transition team, the Obama DOJ did not prosecute for political reasons, and not because waterboarding was established as not being torture. Absent any cases adjudicating waterboarding, we must rely on RSs and current legal scholarship. The lack of consequences for Yoo and Bybee are attributed to one DOJ official; updating the consensus to "waterboarding is (possibly) not torture" based on his report would be to grant him undue weight compared to the rest of the source list.

My conclusion: For the aforementioned reasons, I don't think the absence of prosecutions is grounds to re-evaluate the current consensus, which states that "according to the sources that exist, the phrase 'waterboarding is a form of torture' is an accurate assertion, supported by an overwhelming majority of sources."-Ich (talk) 11:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

You've carefully ignored the WP:BLP issue. Wikipedia policy is the product of a consensus of all Wikipedia editors, not just the ones who have been interested enough to work on the article. You seem to think that in the absence of a decisive court opinion on the matter, in a court of competent jurisdiction, we should leave the WP:BLP violation in place. Wikipedia policy explicitly requires the opposite. Absent a decisive court opinion stating that the CIA waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others was torture, this WP:BLP violation must be removed. And I urge you to remove it. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 02:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Upon further review, it appears that the actual edit to the article was done by someone named Fold 1997. You popped in on June 4 and did a technical edit. Then Fold 1997 magically popped in on June 5 (for the very first time in eight months) and actually performed the edit to the lede sentence, did nothing else, and departed again. He/she has now been gone for nearly three weeks again. And you, Ich, popped back in on June 5, did another technical edit, and explained to me here on the Talk page why the edit to the lede sentence had to be done. Hmmm. People whose nature is to be deeply suspicious might call that sockpuppetry. Do you know Fold 1997?? Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:23, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Phoenix and Winslow:, if you think there's content further down in the article that violates BLP, I'm happy to discuss it here or on a BLP noticeboard. My focus was entirely on the consensus at the top of the talk page regarding the lede, mentioned in Fold 1997's edit summary and which you proposed reevaluating. Please avoid editing the consensus in the FAQ until more people have had the chance to respond to your concerns. Your first edit didn't mention any BLP-related objections to the content [edit: this was unclear. I mean to say: First, Gina Haspel's name appears nowhere on the page, so having this article as a BLP violation on Haspel is not an obvious connection. The language on her page includes the word torture in plenty of places, but is consistently attached to strong reliable sources, which I think fulfills BLP. Referring to her as a "war criminal" absent a court decision would violate BLP, but referring to waterboarding as torture based on reliable sources does not.], which is why I didn't address that in my prior response. A court decision will not necessarily settle the issue; for example, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on torture thinks waterboarding is torture and I doubt a U.S. court ruling will change his minds. The U.S. government has blocked its own courts from adjudicating the issue in the past, so a court decision will likely not be forthcoming. Until then, we must rely on a consensus based on the published reliable sources and legal scholars who have given opinions on this matter. These are discussed at length in the talk archives and on Talk:Waterboarding/Definition. Please don't single-handedly change a previously established consensus without forming a new consensus, which is something that by definition cannot be done alone. For this reason, I would like to put out an RFC request so more people can join in the discussion.

I'd like to ask you to refrain from imputations such as "you've carefully ignored" or "you seem to think ... we should leave the BLP violation in place", as this kind of language neither accurately represents my positions nor engenders civil conversation. Regarding the insinuation about sockpuppetry: As you can see from my contribs page, I make a number of technical edits. I was reviewing my recent edits and saw that the page had changed since my last visit. Fold 1997's edit summary referred to a talk page consensus, which drew me to this debate here. I have no ties whatsoever to User:Fold 1997; the only other account I've ever used was User:Ichvonen, which I created for editing the German Wikipedia in 2012 and have not used since WP:SUL in 2015.-Ich (talk) 19:24, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd also like to point to the consensus established for the lede on Enhanced interrogation techniques which also is clear about EITs being a euphemism for torture; it feels wrong for waterboarding to be listed as an EIT, and in turn the page EIT says "EITs are a euphemisms for ... torture". The style guide WP:EUPHEMISM specifically instructs editors to avoid terms that mask the meaning of words, such as "collateral damage" and prescribes instead "civilian casualties".-Ich (talk) 08:32, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

This article is perhaps the most egregious example of the liberal bias in Wikipedia. The following common sense points are clearly true: (1) The Bush administration believed waterboarding was legal under US law. (2) US law prohibits torture. This would indicate to any common sense person that the issue of whether waterboarding is torture or not is controversial. Since Wikipedia articles aim for neutrality, they should not state as fact things which are controversial. However, the liberals who hold power at Wikipedia feel bound to use their power to promote the liberal cause. This creates glaring examples of bias, like this article. --Westwind273 (talk) 22:01, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Your first premise is not in evidence, and neither is the second. Yes, US law forbids torture in general, but it also forbids killing in general. Then there are exceptions ("The victim is not a citizen, the location is not under US jurisdiction, the actual torture is not done by federal employees, the victim is brown, far away, and there are no reporters present", ...). "Common sense" is not a good guide for complicated legal questions. And I doubt that "the Bush administration" had a unified belief about many things. Even if it had, in the middle ages people had a strong belief about witches. That does not mean that we today have to claim that there is a controversy about women riding broomsticks in the air and poisoning cattle in service of the devil. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:00, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

The following sources call waterboarding an interrogation technique (or harsh interrogation technique), not torture: dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, Oxford Dictionary, and vocabulary.com. If this article were to be truly neutral, it would start off with "harsh interrogation technique" or "interrogation technique", and then leave the question of torture to the section on Classification. --Westwind273 (talk) 22:24, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

None of these sources disagree with the torture classification. This article is not supposed to be "truly neutral" (that seems to be and Dungeons and Dragons character alignment), it follows WP:NPOV by reflecting the weight of reliable sources. Also see [1], [2], [3]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

It is not a question of agreeing or disagreeing. It is a question of the most common definition. The sources I provided have much higher Google rankings than the sources you provided, and are therefore more prominent as per WP:NPOV. Thus the sources I listed should be given more weight. I agree with your statement about "truly neutral" vs weight (NPOV). My sources have more weight. --Westwind273 (talk) 23:29, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

The Bush administration believed waterboarding was legal under US law. That's not true. Prior to the Bush administration, US courts and other tribunals prosecuted a number of people for using waterboarding while consistently branding it "torture." M.Bitton (talk) 23:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Rather than debate the Bush administration history, the quicker way to settle this is, as Stephan says, via WP:NPOV and due weight. The sources using "interrogation" have more weight than the sources using "torture". Thus the lead sentence should say "interrogation", not "torture". The issue of whether it is torture or not should be covered in the Classification section. --Westwind273 (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Personal Disclaimer: I happen to believe that waterboarding is torture. However, I believe that liberal bias on Wikipedia tremendously weakens its overall influence. If you are someone who wants more people to recognize waterboarding as torture, it would be much more effective to have the opening statement as NPOV, and then give all the reasons why it is torture in the Classification section. Otherwise, people of the center-right and right will not be open to the arguments in the Classification section. They will take one read of the first sentence and quickly dismiss this article as biased. The only way for Wikipedia to have broad influence in disseminating truth is to strive hard to follow WP:NPOV. --Westwind273 (talk) 02:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

It's not our task to reason people out of positions they have not achieved by reason in the first place (with an apology to Jonathan Swift). We don't try to persuade, we describe. Try to assume the opposite position - why would anyone read our text if in the very beginning it presents a euphemistic position almost exclusively used by the perpetrators and their apologists? Google ranking is not a valid metric of "weight" - it overemphasises popular sources and underemphasises academic and professional sources. As for liberal bias: I hope you are aware of the fact that from a worldwide perspective (and Wikipedia is a worldwide project) on most positions the US Democrats are about 2000 cubits east of what most consider a moderate position - and that is on a map with conventional layout. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

RFC: Should this article define "waterboarding" as a form of torture in the first sentence of the lead, or not?

Should this article define "waterboarding" as a form of torture in the first sentence of the lead, or not?-Ich (talk) 13:52, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Should we change the previously established consensus, which is "according to the sources that exist, the phrase 'waterboarding is a form of torture' is an accurate assertion, supported by an overwhelming majority of sources."?-Ich (talk) 19:32, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

(Summoned by bot) This is a malformed RfC. What do you propose changing this to? The current phrasing is inappropriate, but it's not much use asking for community input without a specific proposal. Vanamonde (talk) 04:34, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Thank you for your response, I wasn't exactly sure if RFC, WP:DR, or WP:3 would have been the best way to address this. The previous consensus quoted from the FAQ was: ...according to the sources that exist, the phrase "waterboarding is a form of torture" is an accurate assertion, supported by an overwhelming majority of sources. Correspondingly, the previous lede sentence for the article was "Waterboarding is a form of water torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning."

Phoenix and Winslow (talk · contribs) has changed the lede sentence to "Waterboarding is any one of several methods of enhanced interrogation performed by pouring water over the nose or mouth of an immobilized person, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning." From his statements above, my reading of his suggested new consensus is Waterboarding (particularly as employed in the context of the War on Terror) has not been clearly established as torture and should not be directly referred to as torture without "regarded by some observers" or similar qualifiers; directly saying "waterboarding is a form of torture" violates BLP because it indirectly accuses waterboarders of torture. User:P&W cites the absence of prosecution or disbarment under Obama as well as the absence of rulings by U.S. courts.-Ich (talk) 12:20, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

In that case, I would suggest replacing the question above with the question "should this article define "waterboarding" as a form of torture in the first sentence of the lead, or not?" 13:29, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Because a large section of this article happens to address the controversy over whether waterboarding is or isn't torture, it would simply be inappropriate and inconsistent to label it as torture in the first sentence of the lead. Kerdooskis (talk) 21:35, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

In other words, a Wikipedia article cannot contradict itself. Kerdooskis (talk) 21:37, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

The lede says "waterboarding is torture" and the body says "the Bush administration reclassified waterboarding as 'technically possibly maybe not exactly torture' through the OLC's 'intentional professional misconduct,' which has since been thoroughly repudiated." I don't think Wikipedia contradicts itself.-Ich (talk) 14:14, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose, since the position that it is not torture has some weight (it is definitely a mild form of torture, when defined as such, compared to some other methods). I would also omit the "enhanced interrogation" euphemism out of the lead sentence (these euphemisms tend to change, and this particular one is US specific I believe). The torture yes/nk debate should be presented further down.Icewhiz (talk) 10:45, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

  The whole idea that waterboarding might not be torture is entirely US specific. And I would strongly object to the claim that repeatedly nearly suffocating a person is "a mild form of torture". It is one that does not leave obvious physical marks, but that's the best one can say about it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

  Oh, there are other countries that use "physical interrogation techniques" and attempt to label them as non-torture. Specifically, waterboarding is mild compared to Rack (torture) or Parrilla (torture) (not defending waterboarding, just saying that in the realm of torture - there are really brutal techniques).Icewhiz (talk) 12:43, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  The rack is medieval in the literal sense of the word. I really don't want to discuss the relative brutality of electroshocks compared to repeated slow drowning - they are both far beyond the pale. Most other countries that do use torture actually deny that they use torture, they don't try to redefine it. One of the problems of a major western power like the US trying to legalise torture is that that is providing exactly the excuse any tin pot dictator has wet dreams about... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:59, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  When we say the debate is entirely US-specific, it's perhaps worth noting that I went through most of the foreign language editions of Wikipedia and they all use (as far as google translate can be trusted) the word "torture" in the lede. If enwiki is going to deviate from every other wikipedia, it should have an ironclad case for doing so.-Ich (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

• Of course. That's what it is. --John (talk) 10:55, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. Reliable sources agree. Some weak self-serving sources disagree. Flat Earth does not get equal time, either. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:02, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose very strongly. Believing that the earth is flat isn't a felony, Stephen. I can't even believe someone reverted the edit and that we're opening an RfC on this without first changing our long standing WP:BLP policy. This Wikipedia policy expressly militates against claiming, in the article mainspace, that any living person committed any crime unless that person has been found guilty of that crime in a court of competent jurisdiction. In this case we're not just claiming it in the mainspace. We're claiming it in the first seven words of the lede. No court of competent jurisdiction has ever ruled that the CIA style waterboarding of three Al-Qaeda detainees was torture. Torture is a hideous crime, with negative connotations similar to sex trafficking or child molesting. No court has ever found anyone guilty of committing this crime against the three Al-Qaeda detainees who are at the center of the modern debate on this topic. Nor has any court issued a declaratory judgment, or any other kind of judgment, announcing that these actions were torture — even without finding any specific person guilty. These accusations are smearing the name of Gina Haspel, current CIA director, and several less well known CIA interrogators and other personnel who was involved in the harsh interrogation program that some human rights advocates and other lawyers, but absolutely zero courts of competent jurisdiction, have described as torture. In particular, these less well known (and in fact, virtually unknown) CIA interrogators are not exempted by WP:WELLKNOWN and therefore WP:NPF applies. These are not public figures. Under the section of policy titled WP:BLPCRIME we find the following word for word quote.

For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction.

Accordingly, I must very strongly oppose the continued presence of these libelous words anywhere in the Wikipedia mainspace. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 23:56, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Repetition is not making your argument any better. We are not accusing anyone of a felony, we are describing the act as what it is. How absurd your argument is becomes obvious when applying it to Kim Jong-un - alive, never been convicted of a felony, so we cannot talk about Human rights in North Korea? Or so-called extraordinary rendition - we can't call it abduction? Just because the US fell back (in part, hopefully temporarily) into an age of barbarism after 9/11 and historically has refused to prosecute members of the government or most people acting "under orders" (the classical Nuremberg defence), and does not recognise (most?/any?) international courts, does nor mean we have to censor our encyclopaedia of well-known and widely sourced facts. Have you ever looked at (the strongly censored summary of) the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture [4]? Our WP:BLP is there to protect individual people against unproven allegations, not to shield state actors from inconvenient facts. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

You conveniently forget that Kim Jong-un is exempted from full protection under WP:BLP by WP:WELLKNOWN. He is a public figure. Individual CIA interrogators are not. Several war crimes accusations in both the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq have produced prosecutions and in some cases convictions, such as Lt. William Calley. The alleged (and unproven) motive you claim for not prosecuting anyone for this particular claim of torture does not excuse the fact that no one has been prosecuted for, let alone convicted of torture as a result of these three waterboardings. And the fact that no one has been convicted militates strongly against including the unqualified claim "waterboarding is a form of torture" in the lede sentence. The Senate Intelligence Committee's report is an intensely partisan document, thrown together rather crudely by the Democrats a few days before the new GOP majority took control of Congress and the committee. It was intended more to score political points than find facts. Most journalists summarizing it jumped straight to the "Conclusions" section without bothering to read the huge volume of "Amendments," which gutted most of the "Conclusions," resulting in a large amount of inaccurate news stories about it. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 10:58, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Where in our article do we even mention individual CIA agents? We talk about the act, not the actors. Notice that we do have articles on other forms of crimes, too. Your WP:BLP argument is hollow on both ends. The number of convictions for war crimes in Vietnam was, of course, trivial compared to the number of openly acknowledged crimes, and nobody in the political chain has been convicted nor, to my knowledge, even been prosecuted for e.g. the bombings of Cambodia and Laos, undeniable and obvious war crimes. Calley was the one fall guy - and he served less than 4 years of house arrest, which seems like a comparatively light price for someone personally convicted of 22 killings, and responsible for an event for which even the US army acknowledges 347 killed, with a couple of mass rapes thrown in for good measure. The US has been historically extremely reluctant to prosecute crimes performed by its agents, direct or indirect. Sadly, it is not alone in that, but that does not make it better. It's also irrelevant to the fact that waterboarding is widely described as a form of torture by experts from a wide range of political backgrounds - including e.g. John McCain, a leading Republican senator, and David Miliband, foreign secretary of one of the staunches US allies, not to mention scores of law professors and judges. And of course there are courts that have decided that waterboarding is torture - e.g. the European Court of Human Rights, which as decided against Poland, Romania, and Lithuania for cooperating in "the CIA's abduction and torture program" [5][6]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Your speculation about the "real" reason why nobody's been prosecuted for waterboarding the Al-Qaeda detainees is just that. Speculation. The fact of the matter is that nobody's even been charged with torture, let alone convicted, and that is the fact that Wikipedia policy sees. Your "wide range of experts" are, in effect, accusing several Americans of committing the crime of torture. Or conspiracy to commit torture (with Bush & Cheney as the masterminds of the conspiracy). No one denied that the waterboarding was done. The only missing part is whether CIA style waterboarding is in fact torture. The claims that it is torture are mere accusations, not proven in a court of law. Sure there are a lot of accusations. And they come from people who are well educated in the law. But these people also have a possible bias because they are human rights advocates. They have made human rights advocacy their career choice. The Wikipedia policy is very clear in stating that "Accusations ... do not amount to a conviction." Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:02, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be some misunderstanding of my position in your comment. Let me state the core fact again: We are not accusing anybody. We are simply stating the fact that waterboarding is torture, as considered by the large majority of experts, with about the only exceptions being some very few American talk radio hosts (not experts at all) and a negligible number of paleoconservative commentators (only a fraction of which are experts to begin with). Neither McCaine nor Miliband nor Hitchens nor indeed me are "human rights activists", unless you water down the definition to cover everybody who thinks that human rights (as in "all humans are created equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights") are a good idea and indeed one of the prime foundations of modern democratic societies (in which case I would hope that that is the vast majority of educated people on the planet). And you are conveniently ignoring the fact that indeed courts have called waterboarding torture, as pointed out above. Not that courts are, in general, necessary to determine the meaning of words except in narrow legal contexts. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:22, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Regarding "speculation": I addressed this in my very first response. Enhanced interrogation techniques#Decision not to prosecute has directly attributed assertions from a member of the Obama transition team and from Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor. They did not say 'the DOJ won't prosecute people for torture because waterboarding is not obviously torture'. They said: 'prosecuting torture would have derailed president-elect Obama's entire agenda and potentially caused a massive rift with the same executive branch agencies he would need to rely on to govern'. This makes logical sense and is supported by reliable sources. The lack of disbarments is also addressed in the aforementioned paragraph. I find this plausible and convincing.

Regarding "court of competent jurisdiction": controlled drowning, via pouring water into a restrained person's airways, is prima facie torture. Waterboarding is torture whether or not individual CIA agents are convicted for committing it, or what a group of OLC lawyers thinks or thought about it. As mentioned above, the US Gov't has blocked legal proceedings through the "state secrets privilege", so until the same government that is accused of wrongdoing assents to having its conduct scrutinized, convictions in U.S. courts will not be forthcoming. However, even if the Supreme Court rules that tomatoes are vegetables (as they did in Nix v. Hedden, 1893), this ruling would be mentioned far down in the body of the article, instead of some kind of botanical "Teach The Controversy" wording in the lede: "A tomato is an enhanced agricultural product regarded by most legal authorities..." A group of people at the highest levels of the U.S. government decided to redefine torture so narrowly as to permit many types of grotesquely cruel and inhumane conduct (see for example: John Yoo#Regarding torture of detainees). Their positions were so wrong and untenable they have been revoked. (In the last 3 months of the Bush administration, Steven G. Bradbury (not a professional human rights activist) rescinded many of the OLC's memoranda regarding torture, and the rest were revoked under Obama.) This is not a tenable legal basis to argue waterboarding is not torture, or even to argue that the question remains open.-Ich (talk) 21:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

• Yes. That's exactly what it is, and how it is described by the reliable sources. The strictly US-based pseudo-debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture is nothing but a pathetic attempt at justifying the unjustifiable by pretending to question the meaning of the very thing for which a number of people have (in the past) been convicted in U.S. courts; a pseudo-debate that is essentially irrelevant to the centuries-long established definition of the term. M.Bitton (talk) 22:53, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. The previous consensus was correct; I have written above why I think so and reliable sources overwhelmingly agree that waterboarding is torture. The War On Terror should be addressed in the body of the article, but waterboarding is torture. (Note: I listed this discussion on the RFC page).-Ich (talk) 21:16, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. That's exactly what it is, and how it is described by most reliable sources. What else do you call the intentional creation of extreme physical or mental anguish, in order to make an individual more compliant and answer your questions? It is so described in all WP:RS I have seen. However, just as informative as the 'label' would be background info as to which bodies have declared it to be torture and which orgs banned its use. I agree with others that this is simply a (largely dead) US pseudo-debate, which even US govt sources have ceased to try to justify. BLP arguments are spurious, we don't euphemise theft because some unnamed persons might be accused of having stolen as a result of our definition.Pincrete (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose The following sources call waterboarding an interrogation technique (or harsh interrogation technique), not torture: dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and Oxford Dictionary. These three sources are the top three search returns on Google for "dictionary". Prominent law school professors such as John Yoo (UC Berkeley) and Alberto Gonzales (Dean of Belmont University law school) believe that waterboarding is not torture. Additionally, notable professionals such as James Woolsey (former Director of the CIA), Jose Rodriguez (former Director of the National Clandestine Service at the CIA), and Ted Cruz (US Senator and former Texas Solicitor General) have stated that waterboarding is not torture. If this article were to be truly NPOV, it would start off with "harsh interrogation technique" or "interrogation technique", and then leave the question of torture to the section on Classification. --Westwind273 (talk) 22:29, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Dictionaries as sources generally advises against using dictionaries as sources. Yoo and Gonzales were both personally involved in the Bush-era torture programs; citing them is like uncritically citing L. Ron Hubbard when talking about Scientology. WP:NPOV means: "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Insisting on "Enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism and whitewash; it violates NPOV by giving undue weight to torture apologists.-Ich (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

  You are misreading WP:Dictionaries as sources. As explained on that page, the dictionaries I listed are considered secondary sources for Wikipedia, and thus they are a preferred source. You are also misunderstanding significant parts of WP:NPOV, namely “biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone.” In fact, virtually all of the sources listed on Talk:Waterboarding/Sources who believe waterboarding is torture are biased against waterboarding as an interrogation technique. You can’t accuse my sources of being biased when your sources are even more biased. Additionally, no one is insisting on using the word “enhanced” in the first sentence of this article. You are making that up as a straw man. Finally, your mention of L Ron Hubbard is ridiculous. No respected university or branch of government considered him an expert on religion or theology. --Westwind273 (talk) 19:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

  No one disputes that waterboarding can be used as an interrogation technique— all forms of torture have been used in this way. The fact that some dictionaries describe it as an interrogation technique does not mean they are denying it is a from of torture. Our essay WP:Dictionaries as sources warns “while dictionary definitions are usually reasonably precise, they are not quite mathematically precise for every word.” We cannot infer anything regarding torture from the definitions cited. We know from the testimony of Khmer Rouge survivors that waterboarding was often used to extract lengthy false confessions from prisoners and as a form of punishment for violating prison rules. So even ignoring the torture question, “interrogation technique” is a misleading euphemism. The infamous (and repudiated) torture memos argued that waterboarding belongs in the category of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” which they claim is a lesser category than torture. Even under that interpretation, “interrogation technique” is a totally inadequate description.--agr (talk) 14:51, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

  Many who have written here (including you) are setting up a false straw man. You imply that those of us who do not want the first sentence to say torture, instead want the first sentence to say that waterboarding is not torture. We want nothing of the sort. "Interrogation technique" (or "harsh interrogation technique") is a way for the first sentence to take a neutral position on the question of torture or not torture. It does not specify one way or the other. As for WP:Dictionaries as sources, I think the entirety of that page stands for itself. We could go on endlessly quoting individual phrases from that page (similar to how evangelicals endlessly quote individual sentences of the Bible), but the fact remains that the dictionaries I listed are secondary sources to Wikipedia, and are thus preferred sources. Putting it bluntly, those highly reputable dictionaries chose "interrogation technique" because it is neutral, and Wikipedia should do the same. Your reference to the torture memos in fact proves my point. There are many interrogation techniques (such as sleep deprivation, endless elevator music, etc) that are harsh but are frequently not considered torture. I would specifically point to Sleep_deprivation#Interrogation, which takes a neutral position on torture vs not torture. Drawing the line between harsh interrogation and torture is inherently a judgment call that Wikipedia should not be making at this time, given that the Bush administration was less than a decade ago. This dispute is too recent in history for this article to be taking an opinion in its first sentence. As it stands, the first sentence of this article is probably the most blatant example of the liberal bias of Wikipedia editors affecting the content of an article. Putting "torture" in the first sentence is the liberal Wikipedia community's way of using Wikipedia to make a political statement. This is quite disappointing, given that the vision of Wikipedia was to be a neutral repository of information, not a political megaphone. --Westwind273 (talk) 04:26, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not making a political statement, it is making a factual statement. Controlled drowning by pouring water into a restrained human's airways is torture. Before 9/11, the U.S. prosecuted plenty of non-U.S. nationals for doing so and court-martialled its own troops who employed it. The sources on the main Waterboarding page make this abundantly clear.-Ich (talk) 09:05, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

  Look at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rack Definition #6, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rack Definition #2, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rack Definition #3. All these definitions use the word "torture". Now ask yourself this question: Why do these highly reputable dictionaries all use "torture" when describing the Rack, but none of them use the word "torture" when describing waterboarding? Could it be because the issue of whether waterboarding is torture is still controversial? The answer is a resounding YES. The liberal bias of Wikipedia is so easy to see in the first sentence of this article. --Westwind273 (talk) 03:02, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  It may be politically divisive, which is why some publishers will try to avoid the issue. But look at the Cambridge Dictionary, Collins,MacMillan. Why would these respectable mainstream dictionaries describe waterboarding as torture if it is factually controversial? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:17, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

The MacMillan, Collins, and Cambridge dictionaries are all published in the UK. This isn't a coincidence. In the UK, the question of "is waterboarding torture?" might be settled. But in the US, it certainly is not. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 23:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I've already pointed out that Waterboarding has been used for many purposes other than interrogation and that WP:Dictionaries as sources says we can't rely on the absolute precision of definitions. We have many articles that state facts that some political groups find controversial, including Age of the Earth, Evolution, Armenian Genocide, and Tiananmen Square Massacre. Even the infamous torture memos were not discussing torture in its ordinary meaning but instead were only discussing whether waterboarding is covered under what they claimed were more exacting standards in the federal anti-torture law (18 USC 2340) and the International Convention on Torture, the later with reservations supposedly raised during its ratification by the US Senate. And those memos were later withdrawn.--agr (talk) 17:52, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

You're missing an important point: none of those dictionaries is saying or even suggesting that waterboarding is not a form of torture. (a) Dictionary.com is not even a dictionary per se, let alone a "highly reputable" one as you seem to think. Besides, it gives two definitions, one of which describes waterboarding as a "form of torture". (b) The 2013 Oxford English Mini Dictionary describes waterboarding as "torture".[7] (c) Merriam-Webster is owned by Britannica, an encyclopaedia (just like WP) that describes waterboarding as a "method of torture".[8] M.Bitton (talk) 00:10, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Dictionary.com is arguably the most reputable of all the dictionaries mentioned so far. Dictionary.com is owned by IAC, a Russell 1000 company that includes Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Edgar Bronfman, and Chelsea Clinton as members of its board. Now if you think Chelsea Clinton is a conservative, you've really got some problems. Oh, and Dictionary.com happens to have the highest Google PageRank and highest Alexa score of any online dictionary. If you think Dictionary.com is not reputable because it does not have a print version, then you are hopelessly stuck in the 20th century. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Again, these are dictionaries published in the UK, or in the case of Merriam-Webster, owned by a British publisher (Britannica) which controls content. Westwind273 has identified a left-wing bias at Wikipedia and it extends to many, many articles. In the past I've compared the George W. Bush biography, which is packed chock full of criticism from left-wing groups, and the Barack Obama biography, where any criticism by any conservative is instantly reverted. There is a light sprinkling of criticism from left-wing sources for being inadequately left-wing. To this left-wing bias, I would add that there's obviously an anti-American bias. Any English language source that contradicts the American government's position, or the current state of the law in the U.S., is treated as if it's gospel. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 03:46, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Umm...I know that in the brave new world, everyone can have their own alternative facts, but Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has been an American company since before WW2. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:39, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

...and while where at it, Collins is owned by HarperCollins, a US company, which in turn is part of News Corp, again a US company, and hardly one that can reasonably be described as known for a liberal bias. Although I would be very dubious about any claim that the owners control or even know how the lexicographers work on individual words. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't even know why we are discussing this. Wikipedia policy is chiseled in granite. See WP:BLP and especially WP:NPOV. There are many different waterboarding methods, some far more brutal than others, and CIA waterboarding is definitely at the bottom of that scale. There are many different jurisdictions where the laws are different. India, the largest English-speaking country in the world, has not ratified the 1997 UN Convention against Torture and evidently, any interrogation technique that does not leave physical injuries is not torture under the laws of India.[9] So the two largest English-speaking countries in the world have not established, as a matter of law, that waterboarding is torture. And this is the English Wikipedia. IT'S COMPLICATED. And that means describing it is not susceptible to the simple statement AS FACT that waterboarding is torture. Not in the Wikipedia mainspace, and certainly not in the first six words. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 13:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Avoiding "torture" violates NPOV by giving WP:UNDUE weight to a minority of sources. Just because India has not criminalized certain types of torture shouldn't be a reason to couch Wikipedia's language in the euphemisms of torture apologists. India has not criminalized Marital rape but that article isn't called "Non-consensual sex within marriage": the majority of WP:RSs say "marital rape" and Wikipedia mirrors their usage. I find the BLP argument specious: Saying "Waterboarding is torture" is not "information about a living person", but saying "John waterboarded Bob" violates BLP (absent a reliable source).-Ich (talk) 15:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

• It's not complicated at all. Torture in general and water torture in particular have been well understood concepts for eons. Plus we have an international convention signed by almost every country on the planet (including India) that defines the crime of torture and makes it subject to universal jurisdiction, so that any country can prosecute even if it was not illegal where it occurred. Very few concepts have such a throughly established understanding. Phoenix and Winslow, you say above "Torture is a hideous crime, with negative connotations similar to sex trafficking or child molesting." Surely its hideous nature cannot depend on the local jurisdiction.--agr (talk) 18:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The relevant Wikipedia policy states very clearly, "[E]ditors must seriously consider not including material—in any article (Including non-biographical articles such as this one)—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured." This article suggests that Gina Haspel and several relatively unknown CIA personnel are guilty of torture. Accordingly, Wikipedia policy — representing a consensus of the entire Wikipedia community — forbids stating "waterboarding is torture" as a fact. Look at the comments below. People are pretending that because Japanese waterboarding was torture, CIA waterboarding must be torture. Uninformed and poorly informed "upvotes" form the core of this RfC response. It is meaningless. Policy is policy, chiseled in granite. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 14:01, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

I would agree that dictionaries are not good sources for the Classification section of this article. But dictionaries are the best source for the first sentence of this article, because the function of that sentence is most similar to a dictionary definition. The two most popular dictionaries that use “interrogation technique” (dictionary.com and merriam-webster.com) have Google PageRanks of 1 and 2, and Alexa Global ranks of 600 and 728. The two most popular dictionaries that use “torture” (oxforddictionaries.com and collinsdictionary.com) have Google PageRanks of 3 and 4, and Alexa Global ranks of 1,694 and 1,795. Clearly, the due weight of the most reputable and widely used dictionaries are in favor of using “interrogation technique”, not “torture”. In this context, the use of “torture” by Wikipedia in the first sentence of this article is a clear case of liberal bias. It seems that Wikipedia likes to follow the policy of due weight, except when that due weight does not align with the liberal editors’ political beliefs. This is sheer hypocrisy. --Westwind273 (talk) 20:36, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

We don't select sources by Internet ranking. Torture is supported by the weight of numerous reliable sources, including prominent U.S. conservatives with expertise in the subject.--agr (talk) 14:30, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be inventing Wikipedia policy by yourself (a common trait among liberal Wikipedia editors). I suggest you read WP:NPOV, and especially WP:NPOV#Due_and_undue_weight. Due weight is based on prominence and prevalence. Nothing in WP:NPOV discourages using Google’s PageRank algorithm or Alexa’s ranking for determining due weight. In fact, the Google PageRank algorithm closely matches Wikipedia’s due weight considerations in many areas, including the prevalence of links to that source by other prominent sources. I would specifically point out that WP:NPOV says that "in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors." PageRank and Alexa rank are objective and independent measures of the prevalence of people refering to these reliable sources. They are not affected by the liberal bias of the Wikipedia editor community. Liberal Wikipedia editors will always try to push for subjective measurements of due weight, and they twist this weight to their own viewpoint. The first sentence of this article is the poster child for liberal bias in Wikipedia. --Westwind273 (talk) 20:26, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia's page WP:GOOGLE explains the limitations of relying on search results or page rankings: it is a starting point, not an answer. It borders on deliberate distortion of NPOV to argue that dictionary.com should somehow carry more weight when formulating the lede than (for instance) the United Nations, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law (here), or President Obama. Even if page ranking were a valid approach, dictionary.com's waterboarding page has two definitions on it -- the first (from Random House) and the second (from Collins), which unequivocally states "a form of torture...". I'd be happy to solicit further input from WP:RSN if you disagree. PageRank may mirror Wikipedia's evaluation of reliable sources, and very likely incorporates information from Wikipedia, but just because they are similar doesn't mean they're the same. As per WP:GFG: "A search engine test cannot help you avoid the work of interpreting your results and deciding what they really show. Appearance in an index alone is not usually proof of anything." (emphasis in source).-Ich (talk) 10:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

You are just endlessly twisting Wikipedia policy to meet your liberal ends. I think all of you secretly know that objective due weight favors “interrogation method” for the first sentence, but you can’t stand the thought of deleting “torture”. We could endlessly argue Wikipedia policy, but I think I have made a solid case that due weight favors “interrogation method” for the first sentence. I have said repeatedly that I am not talking about the Classification section, but rather just the first sentence. And yet you and others continue to set up false strawmen, quoting Wikipedia policy that is applicable to the Classification section, but not the lead sentence. Rather than continuing to argue endlessly, I think I will just let you live with your guilty conscience in the knowledge that you have created a biased article. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:59, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Please don't impute that I am arguing in bad faith because I supposedly have a hidden political bias. For one, I am neither a liberal nor a Democrat; my political views are a general non-partisan respect for human rights and the rule of law.-Ich (talk) 08:00, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Let me also point out WP:AGF and WP:NPA, in particular "Comment on content, not on the contributor". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Is it assuming good faith to say that people are using their own "alternative facts"? --Westwind273 (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

If you refer to my comment above, I suggest you read it again. I'm not assuming anything, I'm pointing out that the purported "facts" are plain wrong (or "alternative", as per the current US administration). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Westwind273, there are several problems with your “solid case:” First, our intros are supposed to summarize the article. If the body of the article establishes that waterboarding is torture, the lede should reflect that. Second, dictionaries that don’t mention torture are not asserting it isn’t, they are simply silent on the matter. The many that do corroborate our lede. Finally it is well established that waterboarding has been used for far more than interrogation, e.g. extracting false confessions. If we had to avoid the word torture in the lede, an accurate description would be something like: “a procedure carried out on a physically restrained individual that creates an intense fear of imminent death by drowning.” I’m not aware of a single source that denies that is what happens. But we don’t have to avoid the word, and “water torture” fits that description perfectly, as supported by the many sources in the article.--agr (talk) 14:52, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

One more tidbit, Westwind273 cites the Oxford Dictionaries, whose definition of waterboarding does indeed begin: "An interrogation technique simulating the experience of drowning,..." The Oxford Dictionaries are an online service of the Oxford University Press. Their premier publication is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It is available online only by subscription, so it's Alexa ranking is likely low, but the OED is widely regarded as the definitive English dictionary. The OED's definition of waterboarding begins "A form of torture, typically used as an interrogation technique,..." If nothing else, this shows that the omission of torture in a dictionary's definition of waterboarding does not mean its publishers are suggesting it isn't torture.--agr (talk) 03:10, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

• Yes Torture has been used for interrogation since ancient times. The phrase "enhanced interrogation technique" was introduced as a euphemism by U.S. officials who wanted to skirt international treaties and U.S. law banning torture, as throughly documented in that article. The G W Bush administration later rescinded the legal opinions that they attempted to use to support the notion that waterboarding was not torture. The current U.S president has indicated he does not care whether it is torture, saying "I would bring back waterboarding, and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” So there is no justification for our article to mince words on somethings so obvious as waterboarding being torture.--agr (talk) 23:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes This is a no-brainer, IMO. The deliberate causation of severe suffering is what torture means in the English language. Legally, international law defines waterboarding as torture. U.S. law (possibly, the Uniform Code of Military Justice) treats it as torture, as judged in cases from WWII (if I remember correctly). The claim that it can't be called torture until U.S. waterboarders (from the CIA, as if that mattered) are convicted of "torture" under U.S. law is a misunderstanding of the difference between language and legal language. WP has no legal authority and is not bound in any way to follow (as opposed to reporting) the legal opinions of any body; it is just the opposite: WP's job is to present the facts. Reporting that some persons wish to say waterboarding is not torture is reporting facts. Accepting their claim as a valid interpretation of English meaning is too much like refusing to say in the beginning of article on the planet Earth that the Earth is spherical. Zaslav (talk) 04:56, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. Abundantly sourced in the article. This includes, but is not limited to, sources that the US has prosecuted and convicted waterboarding as torture. Alsee (talk) 10:37, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes, the old lead was obviously correct and well-supported. The made-up BLP issues are just that: completely made-up. The fact that someone did something bad does not mean that describing the bad thing accurately is a BLP violation for that person -- that would be insane. --128.164.177.55 (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes as it's widely considered torture. When it is not, e.g. by Ted Cruz, the rationale is the same as the rationale was when it was done (to avoid international law). NPR wumbolo ^^^ 13:10, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes, per WP:NPOV. Weasely phrases such as considered by some are not appropriate. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:28, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes "Torture" is well supported by reliable sources and there is no need to include the minority viewpoint in the lead. (Anyone who reads the first sentence of Enhanced interrogation techniques will understand that the replacement text did not serve its intended purpose.) –dlthewave ☎ 02:42, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes Wikipedia editors and wiki voice should have enough leeway to describe restricting someone’s movement and then causing them extreme discomfort as torture without any sources whatsoever, which specifically name it as such, without fear of contradiction. That the existence of any ridiculous “debate” (which by the way is wholly US centric) should prevent plain language from being used in the lede of our articles is ludicrous. The only possible objection someone could have to the word torture being used to describe this practice is a POV which flies in the face of common sense and amounts to an effort to curtail simple and clear language in order to obfuscate. If some govt feels the need to drown people to get info from them, they’d better get used to having their practices described bluntly in popular encyclopedias. WP:SPADE Edaham (talk) 06:09, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes Intential infliction of extreme pain. The US prosecuted a Japanese soldier for inflicting it I on Americans in WW 2 and said it was torture. It does not stop being torture when the Bush administration starts doing it. Edison (talk) 14:01, 21 July 2018 (UTC)