Best comment on the Hitchens waterboarding stunt (UPDATE for comparison)
You maybe saw where Christopher Hitchens submitted himself to waterboarding and got a videotape made and wrote an article about in Vanity Fair. He says, yep, it’s torture.
He seems to have recovered pretty well. Occasionally has trouble sleeping.
Gee, I sure do hope Khaled Sheikh Mohammed isn’t having any of those lingering after-effects. I’d be pretty sad to learn he wasn’t sleeping soundly.
I hope the people in the Library Tower in LA are sleeping OK, too.
Me, I’m gonna go with the Weasel on this one:
I can see agreeing to waterboarding for an article like the one Hitchens was writing.
On the other hand, crippling electric shocks, probably not.
Nobody wants this to become commonplace. It’s not, and it won’t, and I don’t think the American public outside of law schools and Berkeley are losing even as much sleep over this as Hitchens is.
___________________
UPDATE: COMPARE AND CONTRAST: I remembered something from a while back on Hot Air. Here’s Fox’s Steve Harrigan getting a more intensive demonstration of waterboarding in November of 2006. He’s handling it a bit better than Hitchens did. “GHAACK! OH CRAP THAT WAS HORRIBLE! Okay, let’s try phase three.”
He seems fine now. No word on how he’s sleeping.
___________________
{Post by See-Dubya}
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- I read conservative blogs so you don’t have to « The Edge of the American West
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Abu Grahib was not torture and water boarding is nothing. Until you show me a Marine sawing the head off a screaming then gurgling for air islamofascist, then I will not care what we do to them. It’s war, damn it. Why don’t people understand that? The Shermans, Sheridans, Pattons, Von Clausewitzs and Sun Tsus are rolling their collective eyes in warfare heaven.
When used on enemies of the US, I’d say: “there’s no such thing as bad torture“…
I think it should be used with much more frequency.
Hitchens wouldn’t know real torture if it hit him square in the butt … War is hell … it is not a hollyweird movie … although many of those are hell to have to watch these days …
Listening to Hitch is torture enough for me…
TORTURE MY BUTT!
Hitchens didn’t last 5 seconds, and he’s having nightmares?
Put the SOB through basic training. He’d probably be ready to swallow a bullet after the first day.
Put him with a front line unit for a week. See what his reaction is when that spray that suddenly obscures your vision turns out to be your friend’s brains. send him in to recover the booby trapped bodies of kidnapped soldiers, and make him stand there while they inventory what body parts are missing that were obviously removed or rearranged while the soldier was still alive.
Hitchens needs to don his mankini and cry sensitive tears on someone’s shoulder who gives a crap. And someone please take away the guy’s man card. What a wus.
MNUSMCDavid, do you think for a second that a Patton would even think of attaching anyone’s (enemy or not) genitals to an electric current?
I don’t know if this is a smear against a great hero, or just an inhuman compliment.
Unless he’s been diagnosed with PTSD, I don’t think he really knows the difference between extreme discomfort and torture.
I wonder if Hitchens reconsidered his faith, or lack thereof, during those last few seconds before he dropped the bar.
Unrelated, except that it refers to another guy in the news a bit lately who has some experience with real torture…John King and a crew from CNN were outside my house today for a bit over an hour, shooting a segment for a special they will be doing about the lives of the two candidates! McCain used to live in my neighborhood, right down the street. The crew shot the segment from a few angles, once towards my house as a backdrop. Pretty neato, except that it looked like torture shooting all that tape in our 114 degree Tempe, AZ weather!
Torture is watching Chris Matthews.
Torture is the bastinado (severe beating of the feet, which may never be the same again).
Torture is having bones broken and not re-set properly or have bones pulled out of joints.
Torture is being killed by having nails driven into ones head or being thrown into a wood chipper feet first–or being a relative having to watch that.
Torture is NOT what has been happening at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Grahib prison while we ran it.
Waterboarding may be close, but it is on the acceptable under certain circumstance side of the line.
The question will always be, and there really is no avoiding it until we develop a true mind-reading technology: is our moral revulsion against torture justified that when weighed against the possible number of deaths we can avoid by using it, we will always argue against its use? When it comes to a roadside bomb, probably not. Most people would simply be too squeamish when confronted with the reality of torture in any form and would argue that the risk of casualties is not that large, and after all they are soldiers, etc. But what if the object in question we are seeking is a nuclear bomb hidden in our city? Suddenly we are on the receiving end of the blast and the calculus changes drastically. Agreed?
Hitchens is a great journalist, writer, and thinker, one of the very few intellectuals who has understood from the beginning the nature of the struggle we are up against and has shown exemplary courage throughout this war. I don’t agree with him on everything to be sure, but his value as an ally against the Islamites is inestimable. He is one of those people I always listen to, even if in the end I find myself rejecting his conclusion.
Maybe Mr. Hitchens could have just asked McCain for a few tips.
I think he knows just a bit about what torture really is.
I watched Rollerball 2 while I had an abscessed tooth. I think out of the two, the movie was more like torture.
George Patton’s Ghost on torture
George Patton’s Ghost on torture…
I notice that only included the most benign photos from Abu Ghraib, none depicting genital electric shock therapy.
The part about AG that was (arguably) most heinous, despicable and, yes, embarrasing to our great nation, was the utter sadism depicted in those photos. Obviously there was no intelligence being gathered most of the time; it was pure sadism.
I don’t believe AG belongs in any discussion of what we do in Iraq. I know several great, honorable soldiers who have served in Iraq, and to a man/woman, all would rather die or be discharged than associate with the AG group.
On the other hand, to excuse AG and say it was OK is absolutely inhuman.
Red State, those photos may have showed what looked to be electrodes….. no current was passed through, nor is there any evidence of same….. and I don’t care if appearances are shocking to the “sensitive” eyes of the all caring leftards.
Oh, I’ve been called worse than inhuman in my life…. I am not concerned.
Uhra, Semper Fi, Brother and God Bless You.
Blind Mule, Uhhhrahhh and Semper Fi, back atcha.
Blind Mule #14, Great Link. Love it. Screw the libs. Kill the terrorist.
Ok, you don’t want us to waterboard, so let’s do what our soldiers have to do and put them in a room full of CS gas with a gas mask on and then yank the mask off and make them stay in the room until we get the information we want from them just like soldiers having to recite their pertanant information before they can leave the room. If our soldiers have to do it then it can’t possibly be considered torture.
Torture is what happened to our soldiers during captivity in Japan during WWII. Some where hanged by their thumbs six inches off the ground until they confessed….if they didn’t, they were hanged by their testicles six inches off the floor.
I read about this in books on the Bataan Death March. Every human, including Mr. Hitchens, should read those stories and weep.
Should have put Hitchens in a room with Billy Graham. I think Chrissy would have consider that torture. Otherwise, why not submit to being placed on the rack.
I would really like to see Christopher Hitchens undergo the same treatment as John McCain when he was at the tender mercies of the North Vietnamese. The treatment he and his comrades unfortunate to fall into enemy hands experienced established the lessons used to prepare Airmen for captivity since the 1970s. I admire and respect Captain McCain, but have real issues with the Senator.
It would be interesting to see how Hitchens would survive having his elbows pulled behind them until they touch with his upper arms tied tightly together usually resulting in dislocation of the shoulders followed by a good old fashion beating. He should also be kept in solitary confinement living in a dark and damp concrete cell for a couple of years subsisting on a very small amount of food and water with a daily beating thrown in for exercise. I bet he would prefer the 30 seconds of water boarding that made him uncomfortable.
#19, Thank you. Sure a shame some don’t appreciate you or our military. Oh well, makes my heart ache.
L
I say use the technique on all of the “guest” at Gitmo. Then do it again.
I find it interesting that so many are willing to “torture” the enemy, but never ask the question as to whether or not it works in terms of gaining actionable intelligence.
Methinks the Hitch is overdue for a bikini wax and a ped.
Let’s water board Congress! Perhaps then they’ll relent and stop making more useless laws!
Of course these techniques yield “usable” intelligence. Our guys aren’t stupid, they know what questions to ask and have a fair idea when the answer is a lie. The far left cowards have tried to used the simplistic argument that when a subject is “tortured” they will say anything to make it stop. The interrogator knows what to ask, verifies the answers through other means (phone records, surveillance, other subjects, etc). If the answers do not add up, we continue the “conversation”.
Send_Me:
Suffice to say, I’m not ignorant of the success and failure of such activity…. but the alternative would not be to your liking were our troops to actually follow the Geneva protocols.. all 14 or so them…
You know I’ll always watch your six.
I have been reading all the books written by or about the men from Easy Company, 506th PIR 101st Airbourne, the subjects of the HBO Mini-series “Band of Brothers” for some time now. I have recently been wrapping up Lt. Compton’s book, “Call of Duty”. He ended up being involved with putting Sirhan SIrhan behind bars and did a great many other great things following his discharge as well.
To a man, I can tell you that all of them, regardless of their feelings about war in general, are SICKENED by the actions of the American Left in this country.
What passes for “patriotism” in this day and age, would have landed you in jail, or worse, you would have been branded as a coward and a traitor, which at the time, was one of THE WORST things you could have been called. Your words and actions would have followed you into your school, your neighborhood, your career…you would have never lived it down.
There are times I feel that I am definately living in the wrong decade. The amount of disgust I feel towards those that are called “Liberals” is enough to make me vomit, and the amount of time I spend un-brainwashing my children from all the garbage they pick up IN ELEMENTARY school from their teachers and other parents could be better spent doing other things with them that are far better for them and far more rewarding in general.
I am fortunate that my children can actually see through the BS they are fed, which I chalk up to them having a great amount of common sense…which apparently is not so common anymore, but it is idiots like this “journalist” that will force me into another round oof de-washing at some point.
I really do not know what it will take in order to turn things around, return this country and it’s citizens to feeling proud of their country and the men and women who serve it, o make them realize that there are really bad, bad people out there who would like nothing more than to see this entire world, not just this country, engulfed in flames in a blind belief that it will send them all to some juvenile wet dreamland, to make them see that for all it’s faults, it is still the greatest country on the planet, in the history of civilisation, that it continues to strive towards bettering itself when it does stumble…and to no longer spit…both figuratively and literally…on our military…but it needs to be done and done IMEDIATELY, before permanent damage is done.
Do not let the Socialists, Communists and other dhimmis win. Don’t give tem an inch. Do not back down from them or their rhettoric, and turn it around to where they once again go underground with their beliefs and it is THEY who are embarrassed to say they are Liberals and Leftists and worried about what will happen should people find out about what they feel and say. 60+ years ago, 450,000 men and women in our armed forces were slaughtered because this country listened to these separatists and do gooders, wanting to put their heads in the sand and claim that the bad guys realy aren’t, and that we need to mind our own business.
We need to make sure that this mistake, the one they have been repeating for almost 7 years now, stops being made, and stops dead in it’s tracks today, right now, this very second.
RetFireman
Well said, and I’d be proud to take first watch.
The info that Mohammed gave up led to the capture of quite a few terrorists, and stopped other attacks. He’s still singing just as fast as he can.
I think Hitchens just had a come to Jesus moment and that’s what’s keeping him awake at night…
I just watched that video, and I gotta tell you, I found the whole thing to be an exercise in futility. Considering his “safe” word and the metal pieces…what a joke. He had a mask on, then they put a very thick terry cloth towel over his face, and MAYBE poured one to two cups of water on his face. From the time they first poured the littlest amount on his face until he wigged and dropped the metal, I counted about 15 seconds.
I’m sorry folks, but considering how much cloth the water, poured out of a gallon jug, had to go through before it even reached the skin on his face, he could not have possibly been touched by the water for more than 5 seconds…and I am being generous.
To say he was feeling like he was drowning, I would recommend homeboy not ever take a shower, and I hope to God he does not have a swimming pool, for I would be concerned the local fire department would be constantly called every time he washed his face or someone splashed him in the pool.
That video, that “journalist” the entire “experiment” in general has to be the biggest load of BS I have seen in a long, long time.
Vanity Fair should be ashamed, that guy should be embarrassed, and anyone who actually felt even a twinge of guilt or sympathy based on that piece of cinema comedy, should make sure they have their teddy bears clean and ready, for the boogey man will get them soon.
I was embarrassed for them. I really was.
What alternative are you implying would not be to my liking? To which Geneva protocols are you referring?
The enemy believes that we are weak, & Hitchens & his ilk are to blame. It will come to a point, & soon me thinks, when real force will be required. And then it shall come to pass that the unpleasant realities of preemption need to be replaced with the even more unpleasant realities of vengeance… & the Hitchens of the world will cease to be relevant.
Our current enemy does not deserve any protections afforded only to lawful combatants under the Geneva Conventions. Every member of Al Qaeda or the Taliban is considered an unlawful combatant under the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) and we have been more then generous in the treatment we have afforded them to include making them a little uncomfortable to gain actionable intelligence. Under the LOAC we could be killing every unlawful combatant we catch on the spot instead of letting them live since they have killed every American GI they have captured and after the latest SCOTUS slap in the face to our troops making it very attractive to do just that.
To heck with waterboarding.
Make terrorist prisoners listen to Rap music all day long, and watch French movies all night.
You know the U.N. won’t condemn that.
We could get serious and feed them nothing but pork chops, ham sandwiches, sausage and eggs, ham hocks, etc.
Sorry, I didn’t get to the waterboarding part of the video. The faggy trance music was too much for me.
If it’s genital electric shock therapy you seek RSS, you should check out the ads in the Village Voice. I’ve heard it’s called a Folsom Street Shocker. Fifty dollah make you hollah!
This article may interest you.
If Hitchens wants to try out torture let some of the freedom fighters (VC) in Vietnam have a go at him. What he did was childs play. We came up on a village that did not cooperate witht eh VC & they made an example of them, killed & tortured everyone except the village chief so he could tell others what happened. raped his daughter to death, broke every major bone in his wifes body, impaled his son on a bamboo stick (one end up his backside & then raise it & drive the other end in the ground so his body weight drives it through his body) according to the survivor he begged them to kill him for about 6 hours before he died. killed the lucky ones with a shot to the head vs torture. AQ has torture manuals that make waterboarding look likechilds play.
“Fear works”
Wow! Those guys must have dumped at least HALF a CUP of water on that super thick towel!
Luckily it was soaked up by his shirt (as seen in the video).
I hope he never gets a headache and puts a cool, damp cloth over his forehead, he may resort to confessing to the the JFK assassination.
They should have washed his mouth out with soap while they were at it.
I am still unsure about this issue. Once upon a time in a Universe far far away I was in a Reserve Intel unit that trained for interrogation. We were constantly reminded that we do not torture. Maybe I need to look at that video with Danny Pearl in it again before making up my mind.
Then whats the difference between us and those islamic bastards? I would change our rules such that once theres evidence that a caught person is a terrorist, then there will be no death penalty for them. Instead we should cut their hand (the one they used to kill innocents) and lock up in dark isolation (to drive them really pshyco).
The only reason I am against torture before we prove them is becasue there is a chance that atleast one of them may be innocent - Just a comon man with family caught up in wrong place at wrong time. Even John McCain was prisoner of war and tortured. Just imagine how his mom would have felt then.
Yes, Lifeofthemind, they taught us all to abide by the Geneva Conventions and Laws of Land Warfare, that their was a painful price if we did not follow them. So, I clearly understand the conflict many wearing our uniforms have. I imagine those ashore those bloody beaches in the Pacific, Normandy, Sicily, North Africa, Italy, as well as our Army Air Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard dealt with many ethical delimmas as well. Of course, their ROE mostly consisted of kill or be killed, take prisoners if they surrender, and there ain’t no prize for 2nd place.
I think also of those eight kids aboard those four 9/11 flights. It sucks that we scared the p*** out of fewer than that number of top al Qaeda by pouring water over their faces and just made them just think they were dying.
I also think of the burns on LTC Byrd’s body when they pulled him from the Pentagon and my friend there whose children lost a father, plus those whose feet and fingers froze off at the Chosun and those who froze to death at Bastogne. It was cruel that we turned the heat up and down on perhaps a few hundred al Qaeda who were only doing charity work in Afghanistan before heading to Pakistan and getting “sold into bounty.”
Not much, since it appears to be 99% conjecture and maybe 1% facts.
The freaking media can be accused of torture, repeatedly playing the Muslim head cutting videos, complete with screams and stills of the beheaded corpse. These b@st@rds are the ones torturing the American public.
You say it so confidently see-dubya. I’m glad you are so trusting.
What boggles the mind, is that this country is one of the VERY few…miniscule number really…of countries where when someone is taken prisoner on the field of battle, they are treated with all the humanity one can muster in the situation.
In WWII, it was a well known fact, that when the Germans were going to surrender in the last months and weeks of the war, they did their best to head to the West, in order to surrender to the Americans and the British. they knew what awaited them if they should be taken prisoner by the Soviets. A brief look into the history of the German POW’s would find that often, they were treated better than the blacks of this country. Allowed to eat at lunch counters when the blacks at the same restaurant were not. they were housed, clothed, fed and kept in relative comfort.
Contrast that with the treatment of our soldiers by the Nazis, and you will see a stark difference.
But you do not need to go back that far. Ask the Republican candidate what being a POW was like. Then go and find some info on how we treadted the VC POW’s. And now, look and see how the prisoners taken on the fields of battle in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places are being treated. They have their own special menus and diets, their own special cells, special clothing, special toilets that are positioned just so, thereby not offending their delicate religious beliefs. Without doing so, this country is called vile, torturous, and inhumane. Contrast that with the treatment of the men and women taken hostage by these uncivilised thugs…oh…wait. You can’t. Because there are so few of them that have survived even the first few hours of captivity, that it is virtually impossible to do.
The simple fact that anyone in this country, or anywhere else, can call what happens to those thugs taken in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places in this War Against Thuggery and World Domination, belies a very large and disgusting ignorance and stupidity towards reality, history and the truth of what occurs during a war.
The prisoners of war and the “enemy combatants” of today are treated far better than the rpisoners of our own country sitting in the prisons and jails of our land. he fact that they commit suicide has not to do with how they are treated, but that they ahve been caught in the first place.
If you ask me, i say give them all a length of rope and tell them to have at it any time they want. But the simple fact is, there are a decent number of those kept at Gitmo and other places who have actually resisted being released, because while they were in custody, they received healthcare, food, clothing and beds, as well as a roof over their heads. to be released back into the deserts or mountains meant having to go back to the cold, the hot and the hungry, and they just plain got used to “The American Way of Life”.
Liberals do not know anything about that which they speak…and that’s a shame considering how much of what they speak, they manufacture in their own, twisted little delusional minds based on what they hear, see in movies or read in their twisted little propaganda books and web sites.
Debating that waterboarding is torture, when we have seen the depravity and cruelty displayed by our enemy, is just plain stupidity. Waterboarding, as a means of extracting vital information regarding our security is not torture, it is a means to an end and that means, whilst it may give some terrorist, who by the way, is hell bent on our destruction, a few heart palpitations, and even may, gasp, feel he is drowning, he will be none the worse for his experience. Unlike John McCain, who cannot raise his arms above his shoulders, due to his injuries.
I am so glad I am not a liberal woman. Who could be attracted to these weak-kneed, ineffectual wussies who get limp at the thought of how awful these nasty Americans are for waterboarding .
Anyone notice that our resident Ur-Troll lgm hasn’t found anything to say about Hitchens — now that we can all see by comparison how Harrigan handled waterboarding.
It’s all clear now: Hitchens, brilliant though he may be, is a freakin’ WIMP.
Old commentary from tortured person: Arrrrghhhhhh!!!! Aiiiiieeeeeee!!!! Mommmmmmaaaaa!!!!!!HELP meeeeeee! nnnnnngngnghghghghghgggggggg!!!! (death rattle)
New commentary from “tortured” person: “That was unpleasant, and I SHAN’T repeat the experience.”
As Michael Savage said, what went on in Abu Ghraib wasn’t any worse that what takes place at San Francisco’s gay pride parade.
I do believe he is correct. There is a blogger who goes by the name of zombie that has photographic proof. But I wouldn’t recommend searching for his web site and seeing for yourself.
Nobody wants this to become commonplace. It’s not, and it won’t
Gee I don’t know. Maybe the fact that it only happened, what - three times to two or three high value people after 9/11. The person in charge mentioned that they we able to use the information to prevent future attacks, and it hasn’t happened since.
Might have something to do with that …
According to those at Gitmo, this was used on only 3 persons.
I have counted AT LEAST 3 occassions where this has been used either during protests or as a case study.
So this “torture” has been used MORE for demonstration purposes than in real life????
THAT’S IRONIC!!
Torture is one sure way to lose a war. Battle of Algiers anyone? Especially in a counterinsurgency, where we’re trying to win the trust, respect, or fear of the people, we may want to consider trying to win trust and respect more so than fear. Fear is a great motivator for rebellion, hence collaboration with the enemy. Besides, for interrogations, there are far better methods of eliciting information than torture.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t feel like fighting this war forever, which will be the case if we torture detainees. One must think of the 2nd and 3rd order effects if we are to win.
Funny you should mention that. We prosecuted and convicted several Japanese soldiers for conducting waterboard torture on American soldiers. It’s torture when they do it to us, but when we do it, it is heroic and necessary.
It’s sickening to watch people try to justify the controlled drowning of a human being. I don’t care what crimes he is believed to have committed — it’s despicably inhuman.
The waterboarding that Hitch (and all other volunters and SERE participants) underwent, as horrible as it was for them (enough for Hitch to change his opinion on whether or not it was torture), was vastly different, and vastly less severe because they could stop it at any moment. GWOT detainees don’t get a friggin’ safe word. Their drowning continues, moderated only by the interrogator’s desire not to let it kill them. If a split second was all Hitch could take (at first he was holding his breath, so the clock hadn’t really started) before he began to panic such that he falsely remembers uttering his safe word, try to imagine how it is for someone who can’t make it stop. Try to imagine being forced to endure the horrible panic that drowning induces, and not being able to stop it. Being powerless. And even when it does stop, imagine the fear that it will again resume, knowing that no amount of conditioning can make you suppress that overwhelming fear.
I don’t understand the apparent need to justify this abhorrent practice. Understand: American agents or soldiers can be accused of atrocities without making America an evil country. Calling out your fellow citizens for performing evil actions doesn’t diminish your patriotism. If you think it does, how far would you let it go before you objected? If you can shrug at drowning torture, or shrug at detainees who were beaten to death, what is left? Mass gas chamber executions? Seriously… what would it take before you were willing to recognize that accused terrorists (even actual terrorists) are human beings?
I wouldn’t mind waterboarding Christopher Hitchens. He would not be writing about though. Some posters on this thread too.
We have been hearing that nonsense way too long. More water.
Idiots (not aimed at you, Send_me) in this country — millions of them — echoing the enemy’s propaganda of torture is a far more surer way to lose a war. If (just for conversation’s sake) waterboarding and stress techniques are torture, they are very mild forms of it. Yet, over what amounts to discomfort, we recklessly endangering the lives of our troops and here with the drum beating over it? Very freaking foolish.
BTW, you won’t be fighting this war forever because we discomforted a few of the enemy’s killers. They will keep coming even if we give them due process, three hots and a cot, 4 wives, build them a radio station and a mosque, etc.
We need to stop playing with this enemy and be serious. This fight will not end any century soon, it will get worse, and what needs ended is assisted suicide, ours by helping them kill us.
Controlled drowning? BS! They were scared., that is all.
Real drowning often takes place when soneones throat is cut; like aboard those four 9/11 jets. Rider a high horse will not win this fight; this is the real thing, not some exercise in morality.
SERIOUSLY??? Is this some Onion parody???
It is NOT the “controlled drowning of a human being”. They are NOT being drowned!!!
How many have drowned from this technique, HHHMMMM?????
Please, PLEASE…I would like you to watch this video again with a split screen of Daniel Pearl.
Oh yes, they’re human beings. Capable of doing INHUMANELY things.
Again, as my 12 year old said with a brilliant answer (Way to go Timothy):
“Dad, Torture is when it’s done for no other reason than to hurt the prisoners.”
I like Hitchens (sometimes).
In this video, he showed that he’s a complete p*ssy and he has no heart.
He lasted a WHOPPING 16 seconds!
What a p*ss…
A lot more than that. I seem to recall it’s a standard part of training for many of our military.
Overweight sissy.
RetFireman, well said! I am so tired of hearing about these “horrible tortures” committed in Gitmo. Give me a break. I went through worse during SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) and DWEST water survival training in the Navy. How does any of this compare to sawing off heads and cold-blooded murder. It doesn’t! Not even close. Hey, I’ll take water boarding any day. At least you don’t have to worry about dying of thirst.
I respect Hitchens for going to the effort of actually being able to have a first-person opinion on this.
But is he saying that any experience is torture if it makes the recipient feel significant emotional stress?
The arguments over whether it’s effective are irrelevant to the matter of whether it’s torture. I somehow suggest that on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is having Jessica Alba sitting in your lap and 10 is a traditional Torquemada-spec auto-da-fe, waterboarding can’t rank much higher than 6.
Since see-dubya’s having a flashback, anyone else reminded of this little comedic nugget?
Instead of the corny Enigma music or whatever that was in the Vanity Fair video, they should’ve had the Dramatic Prairie Dog pour water on Hitchens’ face.
If you’re aspirating water, you’re drowning. It’s controlled because they don’t want you to die, so they give you breaks so that you don’t asphyxiate.
Many people have died from waterboarding. Read Henri Alleg’s account of waterboarding during the Algerian War. He describes accidental waterboarding drowning deaths as being “very frequent.”
That silly definition justifies all sorts of evil things (removing fingers, the rack, thumb screws, bamboo under the fingernails) so long as you’re trying to extract information.
It’s all to do with the dehumanization of people. Similar to calling the Jews cockroaches during World War 2 - you can already see editorial cartoons trying to equate the people in Iran as something similar….to those that lust for war and revenge feel as if they are simply squashing the problem away…
We are all just people. Many evil people, many good people… but in 2008, the words we give people mean so much… For many Americans, it’s almost like the word “terrorist” is applied to whatever group is against us at the time and that’s all people need to know…
Now - I wonder if see-dubya or Michelle Malkin is brave enough to undergo this non-torture technique… after all, waterboarding is simply a way to extract information - and not torture.
I won’t hold my breath waiting. So to speak.
Mr. Hitchens,
You call yourself a journalist? How can you claim to have any standing as an authority on torture if all you’ve endured is five seconds of waterboarding? That’s like claiming to know what fishing is like by eating a clam, or being an authority on driving a Formula 1 car because you play video games.
No, if you want to have any standing as an expert, far more research is needed. Therefore I believe you should experience the following:
3 days in a desert hotbox with nothing but water.
50 lashes with a cat’o'nine tails, followed by 50 blows with a leather belt.
30 minutes of thumbscrews.
The aforementioned electicity/genitalia combination.
I can think of more, so consider this a bare minimum for you to consider yourself “informed.” Children waiting in line for vaccinations have experienced worse than what you went through…
If John McCain condemns the practice, one should give that thoughtful consideration. I support taking the fight to the enemy, even to legitimate targeted assassination or coercion/torture when a singular imminent catastrophe can be averted. Torture as SOP is never justified. But the point of the argument is that we can win wars without destroying our honor and the unique nature of American exceptionalism. Remember, Marcus Luttrell’s SEAL team in Afghanistan knowingly gave their lives because they refused to kill the two goatherds who later ratted them out. We are The City On The Hill. Please consider the matter.
So Messrs Jaquith and sausage, which of you is lame and which is diseased?
harrystar
Your son has a very wise head on young shoulders. They always say that “out of the mouth of babes.” Well said Timothy.
Perhaps, for a measure of fair comparison, Hitchens can sample some torture techniques of Al Queda. His surviving heirs can videotape it, and write about it in the next Vanity Fair.
Want torture? Try trigeminal neuralgia. “Believed to be among the most severe types of pain known to humanity. Also known as the Suicide Disease.” Waterboarding, not so much.
Either you’re dishonest or you’re poorly informed. We know for a fact that KSM gave up vital intelligence under this treatment.
Know what I find interesting? How people like you take our treatment of a few specific individuals and from that extropolate that we “torture” everyone in our custody just to see if they’ll give something up.
James #82 you hit it on the head…good post! libs say let’s just let everyone out then because we (may have) mistreated a few…
Blind Mule … love the Patton Ghost… it pretty much says it all..
the problem of course is that libs simply will not listen to tnaything that departs from their
talkingwhinging points. .From reading the comments, the general argument against water boarding being defined as torture is this:
Water boarding is not torture because there are other forms of torture that are worse or more painful.
This is bad logic. Water boarding needs to be evaluated irregardless of other forms of torture.
As far as the article in Vanity Fair, any experiment done by someone will not be the same experience simply because of the control the participant has in stopping it at any time.
What if Hitchens had agreed to spend 6 months in prison for the Vanity Fair article? Would he consider such captivity torture?
Can’t people understand that unpleasant doesn’t equal torture??????
sausage, do you support incarceration of people that are convicted of crimes (serious question)? If so, are you “brave enough to undergo” 6 months in prison?
I won’t hold my breath waiting. So to speak.
and alcohol interferes with sleeping too…(first hand experience)…..
I think that Hippie’s post puts this one to bed.
Hitchens’ publicist is denying some unsavory reports concerning the water boarding experiment that he volunteered to undergo. She said, “It is a complete fabrication that Christopher experienced autoerotic asphyxia during the 17 seconds of torture”. “It is a total lie that Mr. Hitchens’ first words were quoted as “Wow, haven’t had one of those since the summer of 1993″.
That’s Hippie’s post #78
American people seem to have forgotten what REAL TORTURE is… I recommend a viewing of the movie PURPLE HEART. It is a story of an American B-25 crew, captured by the Japanese, after the bombing raid on TOKYO during WW II. Now watch what REAL TORTURE is. Or maybe the more recent MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, from the KOREAN WAR.
Having read the responses to my comments and others, it seems to me to be a total waste of energy and words to respond and or argue with those who cringe at the word torture. This penchant of saying “we are better than our opponents” or ” not sinking to their level” is what caused the decimation of cultures and faiths . I cannot change the way some of you think and “feel”, but I cannot ever deny you my defense of your life at the expense of mine. But, to defend you, I will go into the mud. But, let me know, if you don’t want my protection, I’ll still stand but I won’t trust you. George Orwell is right, you don’t have the courage to stand on the wall, you just make judgments from the safety of your collective desks. I don’t say this out of arrogance or ego, just an observation.
Keep Hitchens dry long enough for the DTs to set in and then he can talk about torture.
David, THANK YOU!!!!!
Without you and many more like you, we wouldn’t be able to celebrate “Independence Day”.
My “judgement from the safety of my desks” is that you are the heroes that continue to make this country great.
God Bless and a great post!
To those who consider water boarding an acceptable technique in times of war, how would you feel about it being used by Al Qaeda on American prisoners? (Please answer the question without going on a tangent about how Al Qaeda does worse).
bluesoc…… having gone through a similar thing myself years ago in going through jungle survival training and comparing( and Al Qaeda does do worse, you’re elimination of that as a consideration was disingenuous at best and stupid at worst) it to the skinning, burning, dismembering and beheading usually done to our fine troopers, ask your question again. There is NO moral equivalency. And if it’s choice….. then water boarding it is, at least you don’t DIE…..
To those who consider firing assault rifles an acceptable technique in times of war, how would you feel about it being used by Al Qaeda on Americans? (Please answer the question in a manner that ensures that no matter what the enemy does, America is the real bad guy.)
/sarc
sausage said:
hell, I’d be willing to undergo waterboarding just to see experience what drowning feels like. After all, it causes no permanent damage. I’m sure it’d be positively terrifying to anyone subjected to it. . .but then, there’s something kind of karmic about the idea of terrifying terrorists; isn’t there?
Mark Jaquith said:
Except it’s not ACTUALLY drowning. They don’t ACTUALLY drown. Their brains are tricked into thinking they are drowning. It’s panic that does the trick, not pain or physical damage.
Mark Jaquith said:
We’re not in the Algerian war. How many people have died while being waterboarded by American interrogators since 9/11? You and I both know it’s ZERO.
JEM said-
Yes, that’s exactly what he’s saying. I suppose the alternative is to politely ask terrorists/enemy combatants questions while they sip lattes.
MNUSMCDavid-
The point of the thought experiment was to consider whether it is a humane act (I’m not even bringing up the word torture). The divide between what is humane and inhumane should not move according to our enemy. If you ask me, that is moral equivalence at its worst.
Salt-
Battlefields are much different than prisons. To equate the two is intellectually dishonest.
- bluesoc
If it’s in addition to what they do now, I’d be against it. If it’s instead of what they do now, I’d be FOR it, because at least they’d still be alive, instead of turning up without their heads or completely dismembered in a ditch several days later.