Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
The point of torture is not to harm the subject, but to produce pain and fear. As someone who almost drowned (my ankle got tangled up in a ski rope and the driver of the boat didn't know I was back there), I can assure you that the feeling of having water forced into your nose and mouth while being unable to breath is not merely uncomfortable, it is incredibly painful, not comparable in any way to simply holding your breath underwater for as long as you can (which is what I believe many of you imagine the feeling to be). The panic it induces is overwhelming. Given my choice, I'd rather have my fingernails pulled or my teeth drilled, and yet people regard these practices as clearly torture. Given the objectives of torture and the reasons for its prohibition, I don't see the "lasting physical harm" distinction.
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The problem with your argument is that someone who is waterboarded does not have water "forced into [their] nose and mouth while being unable to breath."
As for fear, if it is equivocated with torture, then every standard police/DA technique designed to say, in essence, "Confess or you will spend more time in prison" is torture, because they are all based on the fear of doing (more) time i.e. plea bargaining = torture.
