IROC take a look at your Hitchens video and then look at the video later in the thread that demonstrates waterboarding at a US military training facility. Look for the differences.

First, Hitchens has perhaps 1/4 of a gallon total poured onto his towel. The military video shows at least 2 canteens full plus several bowls of water. At one point the water is poured directly into the mouth.

Second, in the Hitchens video both men hold the towel with no one touching his chest. In the military video one of the men push onto the epigastrium to prevent the man from holding his breath.

Last, Hitchens lasts for 12 seconds, the man in the military video lasts for at least a minute and a half.

Point made?

So your point then is that you should not be able to form an opinion on an issue unless you have done it yourself? Really?

Guess all you non-military folks should just STFU about the war then?

You are certainly free to form an opinion on anything, at your own risk.

The issue is, IMO, saying something is easy or hard having never attempted that "thing".

I can think of many things that look easy, but after trying them they are much more difficult. How about those clichés "It's harder than it looks" or "Easier said than done". I think they apply here, IMO.

I've always kind of felt that way. I'd much rather have Seahawk making military policy than Hitchens.

Thanks for letting me know I can form an opinion.

I will sleep better now.

Guess I should take everyone's talk about what an idiot Bush is with a big salt lick considering none of you have ever even held a public office, much less President.

It's laughable to me that you and IROC seem so indignant that I should form an opinion of Hitchens because he was unable to endure 12 seconds of waterboarding, yet you postulate your own opinions about world events, the rationality of a war and the intelligence of our President all day long.

No, your point is not made. Hitchens' performance in this instance is not relevant. Who cares if he lasted 12 seconds or set the world record for waterboarding resistance?!?!?!

Look at it this way: if US soldiers were being routinely subjected to this procedure by Taliban forces, would you have the same (seemingly cavalier) opinion as to relative innocence of waterboarding? Our men should just suck it up? After all - according to Jeff's chain-yanking attempts, this is really no more intense than having water splashed in your face or playing with a Frisbee.

It just doesn't seem right to make fun of a guy being tortured. Spin it however you like.

Indignant?

Not really, just that some opinions are more qualified than others.

My opinion on the difficulties of child birth are less qualified than a Mom's, that's all.

Likewise, your opinion re Hitchens is highly unquified and seems silly to me.

Seems simple to me.

FWIW.

1). I didn't make fun of him. I simply pointed out that he could have held his breath for the same amount of time. Whether or not he was "tortured" is up for debate. By that reasoning, you then feel that we routinely torture our own military members in SERE training? Do we also torture suspected criminals by shining bright lights in their faces? All these things are uncomfortable and stress inducing. Are they torture?

2). I don't have a cavalier attitude about waterboarding. The thread was started as a "Oh my God, waterboarding is so horrible, look, even Christopher Hitchens can only take it for 12 seconds!!". Whether or not waterboarding is a technique that the US should be using is currently under debate and I personally don't think that we should be waterboarding people. Not because it is some form of unreasonable torture, but because we are supposed to be the good guys here and anything that makes us look more like the bad guys just doesn't fit our national image and our national goals.

I do, however, look forward to you two not voicing any opinions on topics you have not personally experienced though...

Precisely.

And Obama should be blown up into little bitty pieces by an IED on the side of the road in Iraq before he's qualified to be President and surrender like a coward.

They should forget waterboarding and force the terrorists to take a bath and use deodorant. that would really be torture for them.

Don't hold your breath... :)

Rick, the simple fact of the matter is you are dealing with people who had long since made up their minds. Long before Hitchens' article and video. They are giving him a free pass because they so very want to believe what he has to say.

It's the way of the hand-wringing ninnie liberal; establish a position from a vantage point of absolutely no facts, data, or personal experience, then eagerly gobble up anything and everything that "supports" that position. No matter how contrived, how weak, how inconclusive that "evidence" may be. No matter how foolish they appear for buying into that "evidence".

This Hitchens article/video is a prime example. If they were not already solidly on his side, they would see it for what it is, and be chiding him for "enduring" his whopping twelve seconds of "torture". They would see it for the sad joke it really is, with a fat old man giving up almost immediately and pronouncing it "torture". Without even getting the full treatment - as you rightly point out (and the hand-wringers miss in their zeal to agree with him), no one is pushing on his chest to keep him from holding his breath. Hell, his shirt doesn't even get wet.

Yet we see hand-wringing ninnie after hand-wringing ninnie hopping on the bandwagon and exclaiming "see- we told you so! Waterboarding is torture" On the strength of Hitchens' article and video? Gimme a break. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Hitchens' demonstration, however, is certainly not the definitive "proof" that it is. Unless you already believe that.

Jeff - your chain-yanking is so predictable it has lost its effectiveness.

While I have never been subjected to water-boarding, I have had a near drowning experience. If that is what water-boarding reproduces then I would argue that it is a form of torture and could result in after issues like PTSD. This does not mean we should avoid it if it is effective. We are fighting a foe that does not follow any rules of engagement or show any compassion for other's lives much less their own. This is a foe with the stated goal of annihilating us at any cost to the planet. This is a foe with no centralized information network, organized electronic communication system, or other "tap-able" means of communication. The only way we will be successful in the information war will be by hard won human intelligence.

Mike, hiding behind your childish accusations of "chain yanking" when you do not want to address certain issues is all too transparent. Or, perhaps more accurately, "shallow" - as in Hitchens' "torture".

Face it. You and your ilk have been sucked in by the very worst sort of sensationalist tabloid video journalism I've seen in some time. Worse than anything I've seen from Geraldo. Lots of dramatic buildup, dramatic music, sinister black masks, brave hero risking it all to expose the truth - this one had it all. Including the dramatic conclusion. All twelve seconds of it. This could have been a Saturday Night Live skit, and we would have all laughed as soon as he dropped the two metal rods.

But no, you took it seriously. Far more so than it warranted. In doing so, you very clearly show your hand. You so desperately want to believe what he had to say, you look right past the (unintended) parody of it all. Hell, I bet you believe pro wrestling is a "real" as Hitchens' "torture". You are way too impressionable, Mike. Especially when a new piece of "evidence" "proves" one of your heartfelt convictions. You need to learn to be a little more objective. To give this stuff just a bit more thought.

I’ve been holding my tongue on this but…

Yes I am a SERE graduate. I do not consider anything they were allowed to do torture, including things that actually produced unconsciousness. My ribs were broken (along with the hand of my patrol leader) but I consider the training valuable and worth while.

In my mind and from my historical reading torture is very different than interrogation. I do not consider anything done during SERE training to be torture.

The most important piece left out of this discussion is the lack of differentiation, definitions, and historical context of the treatment of legal and illegal combatants.

S/F, FOG

Jeff - you live in a strange world. You seem to think you understand other people and their intentions so well. You seem to do this often in many threads - go on verbose diatribes about the motivations and intentions of other posters as if to draw attention away from the actual subject at hand or to somehow allow you to rationalize differing beliefs. I honestly don't care which. I simply thought you were yanking chains, but if this mechanism allows you to make sense of people with opinions that differ from yours, then so be it.

As for the actual subject...

To be honest, I didn't watch the video. Based on what I have read in the past, I believe that the process of waterboarding (when used to elicit a confession or extract information) is a form of torture. Heck, the Navy interrogator mentioned in Sherwood's (911pcars) post implies the same thing. If someone made me feel like I was drowning in order to extract information from me, I would call that torture. I do take that seriously.

Well, my god. We sure wouldn't want to do anything to an al Qaeda terrorist that might make him or some other America-haters like Amnesty Int'l. accuse of us of torture. Much better just to tell him it's ok if he doesn't want to talk, you know, so we don't stoop to their level or offend the do-gooders out there.

Wow!

I still believe waterboarding should be used and would probably support even more severe interrogation techniques, but I will leave that to the folks who know more then me. MUO (my unqualified opinion) is that it probably is worse than it looks, but I actually have no clue.

The point that I have been trying to make again and again is that Hitchens supported waterboarding in a vigorous way until he got the treatment. He probably really really didn't want to believe it was torture, but he caved. Of course his experience is not the conclusive word on the subject, but who said it was?

Have you ever been waterboarded, or is that not important to your very very strong opinion?

Best,