The idea that "waterboarding is ok", but rather that it (esp, very limited application of it), doesn't mean that you rise (or would that be sink) to the level of Hitler or the Khmer Rouge.
Its not like brushing your teeth, but then waterboarding 3 people isn't like murdering millions. If the Khmer Rouge (who apparently did use waterboarding) and Hitler had waterboarded a few people but not done anything worse than they wouldn't be icons of true awfulness. "The methods of the Khmer Rouge" means "waterboarding" scarcely more than it means "brushing your teeth". What stands out about their actions and methods are things like hacking people apart, and killing maybe a third of their countries population.
Some responses to a blog comment by "RickM" express this point well -
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"Rickm wrote: Wow. For pointing out that the US is emulating the torture techniques of the Khmer Rouge, I've been called an a-hole, morally bankrupt, and heartless.
No; you were called those things for taking a thread about the systematic destruction of Cambodian societal knowledge and institutions by the Khmer Rouge, and spinning it completely sideways into a discussion about one of your pet grievances with a current US administration, on the basis of a de-contextualized link that is tenuous at best.
Three US waterboardings under the watch of the Bush adminsitration...verus 1.7 million brutal Cambodian deaths under four years of the Khmer Rouge genocide. To this day you can still visit the memorials and find images of bloody hand prints and blood sprayed in arcs across every surface of the killing chambers. (No, I haven't been there. A friend of mine was, and came back with sobering descriptions and pictures.) And yet somehow, you really think a discussion framed upon the latter is an opportunity to start making pissy points about the former? Seriously, if you aren't just plain heartless, then what were you thinking?
Rickm wrote: Thus, by comparing Bush's waterboarding to the Khmer Rouge's waterboarding, it makes it much harder to defend the act when Bush does it.
Oh, that's what you were thinking. In a word: wrong. You haven't seen anything vaguely resembling the scope of the Khmer Rouge's activity while living under the Bush adminsitration. As Rob Lyman said, like or criticize Bush as much as you like. But at least recognize that your fellow man is not dumb enough to believe that three waterboardings (openly discussed, debated, and criticized, with no fear of reprisal, natch) have a relationship to a genocidal regime that systematically destroyed an entire society. As such, when you attempt to make the comparison, you don't inflict damage on Bush; rather, you heartlessly cheapen the suffering of several million people, and that of their descendents who still live in poverty to this day because of it."
Posted by anony-mouse | November 16, 2007 1:43 PM
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brooksfoe, I belive the point is that singling ou waterboarding among the awful practices of the Khmer Rouge rather minimizes the behavior of the Khmer Rouge. To employ a mildly hyperbolic analogy, Stalin was a hideously cruel father, but a comment which focused on this aspect of his life, when saying that someone else was emulating Stalin, would be a bit odd.
Posted by Will Allen | November 16, 2007 3:41 PM
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"As I said in my very first comment on the issue, "if waterboarding was all the KR ever did, then it wouldn't be worth making the comparison, because the words "Khmer Rouge" wouldn't have any shock value."
That is, while waterboarding may have been part of what make the KR bad, it was a pretty tiny part, in comparison to the magnitude of their other crimes. If they had never waterboarded anyone, their reputation would hardly be any better. The only purpose of bringing up KR in a discussion of waterboarding is to import genocide into the discussion in the hopes that the association will rub off on your opponents.
As usual, Will Allen has managed to make my point better than I have.
Posted by Rob Lyman | November 16, 2007 4:21 PM
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