{"id":13163,"date":"2008-07-06T21:49:51","date_gmt":"2008-07-07T04:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/07\/06\/putting-ones-money-where-ones-mouth-is-on-waterboarding.html"},"modified":"2008-07-06T21:49:51","modified_gmt":"2008-07-07T04:49:51","slug":"putting_ones_money_where","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/06\/putting_ones_money_where.html","title":{"rendered":"Putting one’s money where one’s mouth is on waterboarding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me start by saying that I find Christopher Hitchens, 99% of the time, to be a loathesome little man whose crabbed hateful mentality and penchant for sensationalism is a blot of the worst kind upon journalism. I usually find the stuff he writes to be viscerally repulsive, and discovering that Hitchens is writing to a particular position is 2.5 strikes against that position in my mental playbook.<\/p>\n

That said, I commend the following article to anyone to read: Believe Me, It’s Torture: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com<\/a> <\/p>\n

Hitchens tried to examine the question of waterboarding, and whether it is torture, in a very direct fashion: he underwent it himself, at the hands of professionals. <\/p>\n

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it \u201csimulates\u201d the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are<\/em> drowning\u2014or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The \u201cboard\u201d is the instrument, not<\/em> the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and\u2014as you might expect\u2014inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don\u2019t want to tell you how little time I lasted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

After vividly (and not very self-complementarily) describing how it was, he then cogently and clearly and concisely addresses the arguments by those who support and condemn the practice.<\/p>\n

Given that waterboarding is being done by our government ostensibly on behalf of us all, and is supported and defended by members of our government and political candidates, I do think that the subject is worth facing head-on. And as much as I think Hitchens is a jerk of the highest water, given that he’s been willing to go through this in a way that so many of those politicians, and their pundit supporters have not, I have to give him a hell <\/em>of a lot more credibility than I do them on this subject.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(via Les<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start by saying that I find Christopher Hitchens, 99% of the time, to be a loathesome little man whose crabbed hateful mentality and penchant for sensationalism is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,17,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate","category-homeland-security","category-politics-law","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48992,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/16\/questions-of-dubious-utility-and-morality.html","url_meta":{"origin":13163,"position":0},"title":"Questions of dubious utility (and morality)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 16-Dec-14 5:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yup. This. Pretty much. Originally shared by +Brad Dillon: #torture #torturepractices #torturereport #waterboarding \u00a0 View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/10479741_919496304734846_2581327329499079623_n.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/10479741_919496304734846_2581327329499079623_n.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/10479741_919496304734846_2581327329499079623_n.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12168,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/31\/an_appropriately_horrifyi.html","url_meta":{"origin":13163,"position":1},"title":"An appropriately horrifying Halloween topic","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 31-Oct-07 7:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Torture. Bush's Attorney General \u00a0nominee, Michael Mukasey, hailed as \"Oh my God, after an ideologue like John Ashcroft and an incompetent stooge like Alberto Gonzalez the next best thing to...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11803,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/30\/hillbilly_justice.html","url_meta":{"origin":13163,"position":2},"title":"Hillbilly justice","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Jan-08 1:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There's an old joke about the lazy hillbilly with the leaky roof.\u00a0 When it's raining, he shrugs and says he can hardly go up and patch the roof in the...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11728,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/14\/mccain_votes_against_tort.html","url_meta":{"origin":13163,"position":3},"title":"McCain votes against torture ban","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Feb-08 8:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Sen. McCain has a long rep, since his days as a POW in Vietnam, as a staunch opponent of torture, though there's been a large dollop of public relations covering...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24131,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/29\/i-dont-think-its-technically-torture-so-it-must-be-okay.html","url_meta":{"origin":13163,"position":4},"title":"I don't think it's technically torture, so it must be okay!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 29-Nov-11 11:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, let's be sure to defend a moral disaster and pragmatic waste of time on the basis of (a poor reading of) \"technical rules.\" Just the president we want. #ddtb Embedded Link Gingrich Changes His Position: \u2018Waterboarding Is, By Every Technical Rule, Not Torture\u2019 Back in 2009, when the public\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49003,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/17\/and-theyll-know-we-are-christians-by-our-waterboarding.html","url_meta":{"origin":13163,"position":5},"title":"And They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Waterboarding","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Dec-14 1:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That WaPo\/ABC Poll mentioned earlier today had some other interesting bits in it: Christians are much more supportive of torture by the CIA than Non-Religious.http:\/\/religiondispatches.org\/christians-more-supportive-of-torture-than-non-religious-americans\/Now, I don't think that necessarily means that American Christians (except Bryan Fischer) actually believe that torture is a good and godly thing to do. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Inquisition.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Inquisition.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Inquisition.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}