Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

[ursus arctos]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

That's true, but what Hitchins' account (and the more convincing one by the Special Forces type that GY posted above) make clear is that it isn't just "fear of drowning", but the fact that the technique consists of "actually drowning" the victim, albeit in controlled increments.

I like to think that I don't have sadistic tendencies, but there is a pretty significant part of me that would LOVE to see John Yoo try this.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

AdeC - the problem is, the fact that he does it voluntarily nonetheless serves to make it seem less serious. You know, you don't see him hooking jump leads to his dick and a car-battery. So this to some degree just feeds into the mentality that says "yeah, yeah, so maybe it's technically, legally torture, but not all torture is all that bad..."

[WOM]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

Okay, let me try this with a clean sheet of paper.

You've got a group of people in a war/terrorist situation. Let's call them suspects. And you've deduced that there's a good chance they have valuable information about an upcoming attack, or maybe one that just occurred. Now, you can ask them about it nicely. Beg a bit. But beyond that, what do you do? You maybe threaten to send them to jail for life. But isn't that a form of emotional torture? Maybe you threaten to interrogate their family, or their friends. Torture? Perhaps, in a way. And sure, there are many degrees of severity that we could talk about.

But clearly, we're talking about something different here.

So, you interrogate using more strident methods. After doing so, say using waterboarding, the prisoners are released. They say "We were tortured. We really were. They waterboarded us." Meanwhile, the military says "We waterboarded them. It's not torture. It really isn't."

You've reached an impasse. Is it or isn't it torture? Unless you've experienced it, you're really forming an opinion based on nothing more than a description.

So, Hitchens steps in. He undergoes waterboarding. He says "This, unquestionably, is torture." He wasn't a prisoner with one particular axe to grind. Nor was he a jailer, with another axe to grind. For want of any description you're likely to accept, he was an independent voice. And I think there's value in that.

[Ginger Yellow]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

Unless you've experienced it, you're really forming an opinion based on nothing more than a description.

Or you could, you know, look at the many trials where the US government argued that waterboarding is torture.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

WOM - I think you're giving way too much to Hitchens, to the US military, and to the "War on Terror". But anyway, as far as I'm aware, that isn't how the current "debate" about this particular form of torture came about, is it?

It's a pathetic article by Hitchens. I suppose it's more about his ludicrous ego than his appalling politics. But he reaches no serious conclusion, just some vague "wish".

I'm at a loss to understand the "axe to grind" suggestion, WOM. You can't be saying that only those who undergo torture have an interest in calling it such and stopping it from happening again. But then, I can't really see what it is that you are saying, I'm afraid.

AdC - you're assuming bona fides for Hitchens which I'm not likely to accept. Whatever he writes on the subject of "The War on Terror" seems to me to be aimed at supporting its continuance. If he were genuinely to change his mind, he might be worth paying some attention to in more detail.

[Wyatt Earp]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

Oh, I think he generally calls it as he sees it, TonTon. I think you have to give him that at least. You're right, I'm sure, that this will make no difference to his stance on the "War on Terror", and indeed that much of his opposition stems less from high moral principle than from his conviction that torture is ineffective as a strategy (it recruits for the "enemy" and it provides duff intelligence). But I don't think this is some Macchiavellian scheme: I think he found he was wrong and has said so.

Mind, will this make him more cautious in mouthing off from Mahogany Ridge in the future? No.

[The Purple Cow]

Waterboarding IS torture, says Hitchens

In 1898 an American Army Officer, Edwin Glenn was Court-Marshaled and sentenced to ten years hard labor.

His crime? Waterboarding a suspected Philipino insurgent.