Is 4 seconds of waterboarding torture?

One of the "torture memos" approved waterboarding sessions that lasted no more than 40 seconds each. When I described this to a lawyer friend who is a navy veteran who went through the SERE training, he was surprised that the sessions were so short. Does the duration of a waterboarding session determine whether it is or is not legally "torture"?

My friend's SERE training was introduced by an instruction that the treatment they were about to receive was legally "torture" but that they had to be prepared for it because their adversaries (in Vietnam) might not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. The several-day experience, which also included other tortures, was very unpleasant, he said, but they knew they were going to come through it without serious injury.

It seems from a reading of the memos that the water-boarding approved by DoJ was limited to 40 seconds per session precisely because it was judged that detainees might be made uncomfortable and scared enough to start talking but that they would not actually suffer any serious physical harm. Was the Bush administration correct that 40 seconds of waterboarding is not torture? What about 20 seconds, or 10 seconds? 4 seconds? Perhaps cutting off the air supply for even the briefest period is torture if the victim does not know how long it will last, has no control, and is not sure he will not be immediately killed. Elsewhere the DoJ memo demonstrates a sensitivity to the importance of the psychological effects by reciting that when a detainee is confined in a box with an insect he will be told in advance that it is harmless. The Bush administration and its lawyers seem to have tried to draw a line between inducing extreme fear and mental anguish, on the one hand, and lasting physical injuries, on the other hand. Did it succeed? Is the distinction legally significant?

Perhaps some people in government opposed disclosing the torture memos because that would expose as a bluff a technique intended to induce a fear of imminent death. On the other hand, didn't all the subjects of this technique figure out before the 83rd or 183rd session that they were not going to be drowned?

Update on Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 06:40AM by Skeptic

Just as waterboarding is described as "simulated drowning," maybe the Bush administration's enhanced interrogation program should be described as "simulated torture."  They wanted detainees to think there were no limits to the brutality, degradation, and injuries they might suffer if they did not cooperate, but they wanted everybody else to believe the US was not doing anything cruel or illegal.  Saddam Hussein wanted Iraqis, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations to believe he had weapons of mass destruction, but he wanted UN weapons inspectors, the US, and others to believe he did not.  In both cases the cost of the duplicity was enormous.

Update on Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 04:51PM by Skeptic

I received an email with this comment:

Several print art/quotes in the current dust storm seem to imply the memos might violate the US "Torture Law", which appears to be a reference to 18 USC Part I, Section 2340 et seq. Perhaps the timing limitations on dunking, etc.,were intended to avoid the "prolonged mental harm" requirement for torture in the US code. Or the prohibition against "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental" in the 1984 Convention on Torture, etc.. The 1954 Geneva Convention, which is all there was back in the day, perhaps wisely doesn't attempt to define torture.

Update on Friday, April 24, 2009 at 07:23AM by Skeptic

A website devoted to waterboarding posts this abstract of information about duration and frequency of waterboarding session from the DoJ memos.