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No the goal isn't the information itself, it's the safety of the civilian population, ours. Therefore your definition doesn't fit. Call it a repugnant act, but it still doesn't make it torture by the definition you provided. /discussion




This is incorrect.

The "safety" of the civilian population is not why someone gets waterboarded. If it was, then a lot more people would be getting waterboarded -- politicians, petty criminals, bad parents. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique, used in an attempt to break someone's will. I have yet to hear of it being used in a punitive manner -- instead, it has been used to attempt to force compliance by the prisoner with the interrogator's demands. The interrogator doesn't stop the waterboarding when the civilian population is deemed "safe" (as though this would ever be possible), but rather, he stops the waterboarding when the prisoner complies with interrogation demands.

I again challenge you to explain how the dictionary definition of torture does not apply to someone being dry drowned against their will, until such time as they make a 'confession' to an interrogator.

You don't seem to understand how interrogations work, and the purpose of the process with regards to how prisoners get treated. I would suggest you read A Question of Torture : CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror by Alfred W. McCoy for a better understanding of how and why techniques like waterboarding get used, especially in comparison with other techniques.