John Stewart v. John Yoo

On January 11th, Jon Stewart invited former Justice Department Lawyer John Yoo onto the Daily Show to discuss his new book, Crisis in Command. For those of you who don't know who John Yoo is, during the first term of Bushes presidency he provided the legal framework by which Bush expanded executive powers to include warrantless wiretapping and waterboarding. As writer of the Bybee Memo, Yoo also advocated the techniques of : an attention grasp, slamming detainees heads through thin walls, sleep deprivation, and confining detainees in small boxes with insects. Many tuned in to watch this and expected John Stewart to hold Yoo accountable for his words, much in the way he did so with Jim Cramer.

What followed was a congenial exchange that was hailed as a victory for John Yoo, who would later go on to say part of the reason for the surprisingly good natured exchange was that "I've spent my whole career learning to settle down unruly college students who have not done the reading."

What I can't reconcile, and find quite frustrating with the debate on torture is the utter lack of positivistic analysis on these enhanced interrogation techniques. Liberals take the position that these techniques are torture, conservatives take the position that it isn't and we leave it at that (in this sense, Stewart lost the debate to Yoo by letting the discussion shift to a matter of the limits of executive power). If we are really so divided on the matter, why is it we have not sought the opinions of those who have actually been waterboarded and gone through the techniques in question? Staunch supporters of these techniques will most likely say that the techniques "simulate" pain, and though extremely uncomfortable do not constitute physical torture. I say try it.