Tom Malinowski on New Waterboarding Allegations

Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch writes in with the following comments in response to my recent post on Human Rights Watch's new allegations of water boarding by the CIA:

I’m shocked that you’re shocked! 

Seriously, what’s surprised me over the years is that we weren’t getting more solid reports about cases of waterboarding that weren’t authorized. It’s almost an iron law that when governments authorize “special” people to use “special” techniques on “special” detainees, the use of those techniques spreads through the ranks in ways that governments cannot control or predict.  It happened, as you know, to the Israelis, to the Brits in Northern Ireland, and with respect to every other “enhanced” technique that the Bush administration authorized---sleep deprivation, nudity, dogs, stress positions, etc., all ended up being used indiscriminately, including by a lot of people who had no authorization. And the reasons are pretty clear:  Once you authorize the technique for some people, you can no longer argue that it is wrong or counterproductive; all you can argue is that some people aren’t qualified to use it, and no one wants to be told they’re not qualified. Plus, if the cool black ops people get to use it, before long everyone else wants to copy them.  And waterboarding is easy---all you really need is water.