Surfs up. Christopher Hitchens goes waterboarding

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by billwagnon

Thanks Seahawk, it's refreshing to hear first hand information.

Why didn't you just hold your breath? Were they preparing the SERE comfy chair?

We have ways of making you not hold your breath

And they do. From what I saw and lived, there are three guys besides the POW involved: One holds your head down by means of a towel over your forehead, the second is there to hold you down and push down your chest if they see you are holding your breath (and they'll wait until you need air, btw, they are in not hurry) and the third administers the water.

Not putting to blunt a point on the experience, but I was a tethered goat: holding my breath was only going to delay the inevitable.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

Second, honestly you could simply hold your breath for as long as he lasted.

Did you read the article? It's not that easy. Hitchens mentions that they had a hand on his solar plexus in the event he tried to simply hold his breath.

[Jeff Higgins]

From the looks of it, unmerciful teasing would have broken Hitchins.

[kstar]

Chain tugging in progress.

[kstar]

Seahawk, thanks for your first-hand insight regarding the actual process!

Best,

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by kstarnes

Seahawk, thanks for your first-hand insight regarding the actual process!

Best,

Funny in that I went through SERE in 1984

Give me a few more years and I will swear I kicked all the SERE instructors a$$e$ and WB'ed them

[Mule]

Hell, just bag 'em. That's much faster. Secure said peace lover to chair. Ask question. If answer is insufficiently sincere, apply plastic trash bag to the head of said peace lover & give him time to reflect on his answer. Repeat until done. Leaves no marks!

[911pcars]

Some of you guys make light of the prospect of drowning, or maybe I should be driving a Miata instead.

With all due respect to everyone here, I think waterboarding could elicit a confession of your role in 9/11, Pearl Harbor and the crucifixion of Christ. An optional method is the application of 5000V jolts to the testicles. Your choice. Interrogators have all the time in the world, but I don't think it takes that long.

When it's performed on a "tourist", it's euphemistically called "rendition"

Respectfully,
Sherwood

[Nathans_Dad]

Originally Posted by IROC

Did you read the article? It's not that easy. Hitchens mentions that they had a hand on his solar plexus in the event he tried to simply hold his breath.

Yes I read the article and I watched the video. He lasted for a total of about 12 seconds.

At no time during the video did someone touch his chest.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by 911pcars

Some of you guys make light of the prospect of drowning, or maybe I should be driving a Miata instead.

With all due respect to everyone here, I think waterboarding could elicit a confession of your role in 9/11, Pearl Harbor and the crucifixion of Christ. An optional method is the application of 5000V jolts to the testicles. Your choice. Interrogators have all the time in the world, but I don't think it takes that long.

When it's performed on a "tourist", it's euphemistically called "rendition"

Respectfully,
Sherwood

I think this is the important point here. It's easy to sit back in your comfy chair and call someone a wussy, but this procedure obviously elicits panic and subsequent "confessions". The problem is that while its easy to take the stance that "torture is acceptable if the information gained saves one American life", the information gained by these methods is not exactly reliable. One guy evidently confessed to being a hermaphrodite (he wasn't). The effort wasted trying to verify the information given could probably be put to better use.

[Mule]

If he was half as tough as the lefties we have here, he'd have got hold of one of 'em & beat the rest of 'em with him!

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

Yes I read the article and I watched the video. He lasted for a total of about 12 seconds.

At no time during the video did someone touch his chest.

Sounds like you'd like to give this a try, then? I bet we'd all like to watch that video and critique your performance.

[Nathans_Dad]

I think the real question here is what constitutes torture. It doesn't sound like WB induces physical pain, although I would defer to Seahawk on this one.

If something induces panic or emotional distress is this torture? Playing loud music 24 hours a day, is that torture? Having to watch the Britney Spears MTV Video award performance non-stop?

[kstar]

Originally Posted by IROC

Sounds like you'd like to give this a try, then? I bet we'd all like to watch that video and critique your performance.

I'd be happy to volunteer Rick for a waterboarding session.

[Jeff Higgins]

When both of my boys were really little, they would get very frightened when they got water on their heads or faces, like when we would bathe them. One might even go as far to say they "panicked" at times. They both got over it by the time they were about a year and a half to two years old.

[Nathans_Dad]

Originally Posted by IROC

Sounds like you'd like to give this a try, then? I bet we'd all like to watch that video and critique your performance.

Nope, as I stated above, I have not and hope to never be waterboarded. I do hope, though that I would last for more than 12 seconds if it ever happened.

And we aren't discussing me, are we?

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

I think the real question here is what constitutes torture. It doesn't sound like WB induces physical pain, although I would defer to Seahawk on this one.

If something induces panic or emotional distress is this torture? Playing loud music 24 hours a day, is that torture? Having to watch the Britney Spears MTV Video award performance non-stop?

If waterboarding is so innocuous, why the following waiver:

“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body."

Was that "just for effect"? Something just to get Hitchens worked up?

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

If something induces panic or emotional distress is this torture? Playing loud music 24 hours a day, is that torture? Having to watch the Britney Spears MTV Video award performance non-stop?

It seems you answered your own question...

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by IROC

If waterboarding is so innocuous, why the following waiver:

“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body."

Was that "just for effect"? Something just to get Hitchens worked up?

You'll find a roughly equivelent warning on a new frisbee these days.

[kstar]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

. . . snip . . .

And we aren't discussing me, are we?

Only when you make a judgment regarding something you have never done.

That's sort of a sub-point of this thread now, it seems.

I don't know if I would last 5 seconds or 5 minutes, but from what Seahawk has said, I bet most people could be trained to last longer.

Best,