Grace & Peace!
The US did not define waterboarding as torture at the time.
The US does not torture.
Waterboarding is far preferable to innocent deaths.
This much is crystal clear.
It is easy to determine by this simple question: Would you waterboard someone you love to save their life?
Chesterton, the question, really, is this: is it possible for an evil means to produce a good end? The answer? No, it is not possible.
The catechism section you quoted originally speaks to whether or not self-defense against an aggressor is licit. I would find it hard to conclude that a bound prisoner in an interrogation room is an aggressor. I think you can only identify such a person as an aggressor if you identify him or her as a representative sign or instance in time and space of the aggressive forces which he or she may represent. This effaces his or her individual human identity in the process, however, consequently making it easier for us to justify harming him or her. It is a pretty standard psychological trick we often pull on ourselves–in order to give ourselves permission to be cruel, we must first dehumanize the person on whom we would like to inflict our cruelty. It also is helpful to have a sense of an over-riding value to which our cruelty is disposed in order to lend our cruelty a sense of legitimacy. This does not, however, actually legitimate the cruelty. It just makes us feel better about being cruel.
If you wish to say that waterboarding is far preferable to innocent deaths, you must also be willing to recognize that you are consciously comparing evils. Which is to say, you must be willing to recognize waterboarding as an evil. Which is to say that you must realize that you are advancing the position that an evil means can produce a good end. Again, such a thing is impossible, and it is not morally permissible to employ an evil in order to produce a good.
Regarding waterboarding not being defined as torture at the time of its use, you must realize that slapping a definition on something does not necessarily change it’s fundamental nature. The government has defined ketchup as a vegetable serving for the purposes of school lunches. The definition does not make it so, however. The nature of waterboarding determines whether or not it is torture, not the government.
Your problem here seems to be a struggle to reconcile late-capitalist-early-21st-century-realpolitik with the teachings of Christ. You should probably give up–they cannot be reconciled. You may have already noticed, but Jesus Christ was not the 1st century’s Henry Kissinger. The bottom line: the Kingdom of God is not of this world. Governments will find all sorts of justifications for violence, cruelty, inhumanity. That does not make them just. We live in a fallen world. Cruelty is inherent in the nature of politics. That’s just the way it is. But that does not justify the cruelty, even if we benefit from it, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, love of country should not lead us to try to justify the cruelty when we become aware of it. That’s another psychological game we play when we’re the victims of abuse from those we love and those who claim to love us. It’s often called “Keeping Mommy Good.” The basic rule: mommy is good and loves us and does good things; when mommy does bad things, they’re actually good things because mommy loves us, is good and does good things. In a national context, such an attitude is a bold first step into the territory of nationalism, leaving patriotism far behind.
Again, it is not morally justifiable to use an evil means to pursue a good end. If you wish to support the practice of waterboarding, the honest position would be to just say, “I disagree with Christian moral teaching when it says it is immoral to pursue a good by an evil means. I believe a nation should be allowed to use whatever means necessary to pursue it’s ends.” Anything else is just a different degree of equivocating, of dishonest justification. The principle stated differently is: let your yes be yes, and your no be no.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
