Those who condemn waterboarding can read right? Then why would they complain about its use on terrorists more than on its use on our own elite soldiers?
The answer is that it really is not "torture" in the sense they claim it is. In a broad sense if "torture" is to mean forcing somebody to endure something they do not like, than all forms of punishment and imprisonment are "torture". But in the sense that the word means something so awful and inhumane it is never morally justifiable under any circumstances, it would not be something we would have let happen to our own soldiers in training, and if it had been done there would be complete outrage on everybody's part.
The point is illustrative of a classical error in logic turning on an equivocation. A deductive representation of the argument against waterboarding:
Premise 1) Waterboarding is torture.
Premise 2) Torture is always morally wrong.
Concludion: Waterboarding is always morally wrong.
The problem is that premise 1 and 2 can only be established by using the term "waterboarding" in different senses as I described above.
A more obvious example of the same fallacy of equivocation can be seen in this argument:
Premise 1) A bank is a good place to keep your money
Premise 2) There is a bank along the edge of the creek.
Conclusion: The edge of the creek is a good place to keep your money.
Of course premise 1 and premise 2 are using the term "bank" in different senses. Like "waterboarding" in the other argument, if you use the same sense in both premises, you can't justify both at once.
> I have read that waterboarding was first used to train some of our own elite military before it was every used on terrorists.
You read right.
I held out for 75 seconds, but that was in the mid-60s.
And a few years later, they stopped it as part of the training.
Actually, it was first used by the Spanish Inquisition.