Attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey made the news recently by refusing to acknowledge waterboarding as an illegal form of torture during a Senate committee interview. Citing that the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act’s ban on waterboarding is not inclusive of the CIA and its activities, Mukasey claimed ignorance as to the nuances of the law regarding "enhanced" CIA interrogation procedures. Democrats are now lining up in protest of his appointment and many are calling his response short-sighted and irresponsible. President Bush staunchly maintains his support of the nominee and Vice President Cheney has called the use of waterboarding in interrogation procedures a "no brainer," but the uproar in Congress and in the public arena indicates that the issue is not so black and white.

Henri Alleg, author of The Question (University of Nebraska Press, 2006), experienced waterboarding first-hand during the Battle of Algiers. In 1957, Alleg was a French journalist and ardent supporter of Algerian independence. That June, he was placed under arrest by French paratroopers and interrogated for one month. He was questioned under torture—at one point he was strapped to a plank and had his head, wrapped in a rag, placed under running water. He was forcibly held in this position until his lungs filled with water and his body went into convulsions. Only at that point was he was released, at which time the captain interrogating him punched him in the stomach to release the water Alleg had inhaled so that he could continue the interrogation.

In these post-9/11 times, it would be simple enough to turn a blind eye to waterboarding and other methods of torture, declaring Machiavellian law: let the end justify the means. But the question for Alleg and for many others is: How can anyone who considers him/herself a civilized member of society engage in this or any form of torture? Whatever the gain, is it worth the cost to our humanity?

To read other articles tying Alleg’s The Question to the current issue of waterboarding and Mukasey’s confirmation hearings, please visit these links:

"Waterboarding is torture – I did it myself, says US advisor" by Leonard Doyle for The Independent: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3115549.ece

"Logic Tortured" by Dana Milbank for the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/01/AR2007110102342.html

For more information on The Question, please visit http://nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/The-Question,673057.aspx