Lazy Assumptions

A boilerplate argument against Bush-era enhanced interrogations begins as follows:

1. Bush authorized the use of torture and that was wrong because torture is always wrong.
2. The United States tortured under Bush because it practiced waterboarding.
3. Waterboarding is torture because expert so-and-so says it is.

The glaring weakness in the argument is the assumption that waterboarding is torture. Torture is a crime with a definition. One can't convict someone of a crime without defining it. The critics of enhanced interrogation rarely define torture, or explain why waterboarding meets the definition of torture. Instead they rely on the expert witness, which is the weakest form of argumentation. Until they actually explain why waterboarding is torture, rather then telling their readers it is, their arguments about Bush-era interrogation should be treated with suspicion.