This came up in a conversation this morning, so I thought I’d post it. Different videos have different levels of annoying ads so I’ve included more than one:
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle
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or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
Was never aware that Hitch underwent this. That’s some serious testicular fortitude to willingly subject yourself to waterboarding. It’d be interesting to see any of the elected representatives who were crowing that this was not torture undergo the same. I doubt I could take that for long, either.
Every politician who says waterboarding is not torture should be waterboarded. They should be waterboarded after sleep deprivation, partial starvation, being sprayed with water, and forced to listen to Barney songs.
There were not a lot of war crimes prosecutions against the Japanese after WWII, but some of the few cases involved waterboarding. The analysis at that time said the Japanese did not get that much useful intelligence from waterboarding. US troops were trained to deal with capture and interrogation
In contrast, Japanese troops had almost no training about how to deal with capture and would often give useful information with softball interrogation techniques.
Even so, the reputation that the “Japs are super hardcore” trope led to many abuses of prisoners by US and especially Australian forces, much to the dismay of the intelligence services of both countries. John Dower’s War Without Mercy is a good source on this subject.
Torture and the death penalty both have a reputation for effectiveness that do not hold up to investigation. They both are related to giving a felling of power and control which is why they remain popular in spite of their lack of usefulness. It was the resistance of the urge for power and revenge that used to be an American ideal. It was something to proud of and a justification to think of ourselves as a civilized people. Giving in to these primitive urges makes us less worthy as a people and for no gain.
Waterboarding isn’t ‘simulated’ drowning. It’s just ‘drowning’.
As Stevarious says. Waterboarding is drowning usually stopped before resulting in death. There’s something wrong with someone who personally needs to be drowned before he can admit that intentionally drowning a man is torture.