Believe Me, It's Torture

Believe Me, It's Torture

www.vanityfair.com

Believe Me, It’s Torture
What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
by Christopher Hitchens August 2008

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Before you accuse the guy of being bias . Look at some of his other works . It may change your mind.

"Hitchens is one of the staunchest defenders of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, arguing on the 5th anniversary of the invasion that he was right all along. After the photos of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib became public he wrote that such conditions nonetheless made the prison an improvement from its pre-war state.

In his most recent piece, Hitchens does not touch on his arguments in support of the war, but he argues that waterboarding as a practice is not helpful in the pursuit and persecution of the war against al Qaeda."

www.vanityfair.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Here's the youtube video mentioned.
Cant find one without the horrible music sorry :/



[edit on 3-7-2008 by d11_m_na_c05]

reply to post by d11_m_na_c05

by Christopher Hitchens August 2008

He's really ahead of his time.

Still, what he says is true. Waterboarding is torture. We recognized it as torture when the mysterious 'they' were going to use it against us. I can't see how we can change the definition to some patriotic duty now.

Of course waterboarding is torture. No question in my mind. It's both psychological and physical. The question might be..... is there ever a situation which morally justifies it? Now there's a sticky wicket, that thar thang

n/m kthnx

[edit on 3-7-2008 by d11_m_na_c05]

Originally posted by argentus
Of course waterboarding is torture. No question in my mind. It's both psychological and physical. The question might be..... is there ever a situation which morally justifies it? Now there's a sticky wicket, that thar thang

Not sticky at all. There is no moral justification of torture. Torture is a way to get someone to "confess" to anything you might want them to confess to - ala the Inquisition. Far more effective is getting the individual to trust you. This will gain better information by far than doing something an individual will say anything to get to stop.

And how, therefore, can you trust anything said under these circumstances? If you have someone who is saying that they don't know anything - and unbeknownst to you, they really don't - yet you have it in your mind that they do... What will you do with the "information" they finally give you when they can take no more and give you what they think you want to hear?

How vile that shows like 24 show torture as being effective. How vile that they suggest there is "a situation which morally justifies it." Brainwashing us away from the nobility that this country once believed in and supported. How ugly of you to even suggest it.

No. Torture is morally reprehensible ALWAYS.