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1. Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/2 @ 9:00 am #

   Yeah, he was martiniboarded with Beefeaters Gin and olives!

2. Comment by Go_Fish on 7/2 @ 9:05 am #

   Wow. Whatever your opinion of Hitch, you certainly have to admire his willingness to put his money where his mouth is. I don’t always agree with his opinions, but I have a newfound respect for them.

3. Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/2 @ 9:05 am #

   So he’s in favor of arresting the folks who water board each other in the streets? Shouldn’t whoever did it to him be arrested?

4. Comment by dre on 7/2 @ 9:08 am #

   Sometimes I find reading his prose torturous.

5. Comment by sashal on 7/2 @ 9:12 am #

   Go_Fish, #2
   If you had so much to consume the night before, just like Hitch, you would gladly do the waterboarding on yourself too. You know that thirst next morning, don’t you?

6. Comment by charles austin on 7/2 @ 9:28 am #

   He’s right, it is torture, though far from the worst forms of torture. But it is a separate question as to whether torture for the likes of KSM is permissable, and whether its use on KSM makes us just as bad as Al Qaeda.

   Mr. Hitchens leans towards the slippery slope argument when it comes to waterboarding, but seems to acknowledge that this is very far from a black and white issue.

7. Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/2 @ 9:34 am #

   He’s right, it is torture, though far from the worst forms of torture. But it is a separate question as to whether torture for the likes of KSM is permissable, and whether its use on KSM makes us just as bad as Al Qaeda.

   Why don’t we ask Daniel Pearl? Oh yeah, we can’t!

8. Comment by Pablo on 7/2 @ 9:37 am #

   I’d rather be waterboarded than spend a weekend with Rosie O’Donnell, Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin and or Janine Garofalo. Some things are just unholy.

9. Comment by Dan Collins on 7/2 @ 9:43 am #

   There’s really no point at all in Janine, as long as there’s Maggie Gyllenhaal.

10. Comment by sashal on 7/2 @ 10:14 am #

    hmm, pablo,
    You may be right ,
    given the choices you pointed out in # 8, especially when we know that the waterboarding lasts only a few seconds and one can go back enjoying the life without those characters….

11. Comment by narciso on 7/2 @ 10:52 am #

    By the way any comment on We’re just like the Chinese Communists” meme on waterboarding. besides as a defacto release brief for KSM today, and Osama
    tomorrow. One knows that the French interrogation procedures in Algeria; was built partially on the experience of former prisoners at Dien bien Phu.
    Re-engineered for defensive purposes.
    This was the argument that I.F. Stone,
    useful idiot, made about the paras who were involved in the rebellions against
    the French government in ‘58 and ‘61; which they were actually right about.

12. Comment by Ouroboros on 7/2 @ 11:00 am #

    I’ve been water boarded and this is a good description. The adrenalin rush. The panic.. It’s the scariest thing I ever experienced (even worse than the first NG tube that I got put down my throat..).. Once you’ve experienced it the term ‘torture’ seems to fit real well.

    On the other hand, it doesn’t cause lasting physical damage and if we accept the necessity of interrogation techniques appropriate for use with criminals that don’t automatically spill everything they know when we look at them mean and threaten… Then I’m ok with using it in a serious situation..

    I think about this technique every time I hear on the news that police have captured some serial murderer that wont tell them where his victims are… I always think.. Give him 5 minutes on the board and ask him again.

13. Comment by Karl on 7/2 @ 11:23 am #

    Hitch also writes this:

    [A] man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time. When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl? On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.

    So it’s torture, but not actual torture. And by Hitch’s description not torture under the UNCAT as expressly interpreted by the US Senate during ratification. But you know, Bush is still Smirky McChimpler, so whatever.

14. Comment by Karl on 7/2 @ 11:26 am #

    narciso,

    Re: The ChiCom meme

    Less than meets the eye. Shocka!

15. Comment by dicentra on 7/2 @ 11:27 am #

    I don’t care if it is torture. Use it on KSM as many times as you want, fellas.

    We’re not automatically “just as bad as” our enemies when we use harsh methods of combat. The goal of your actions has to be taken into account. Like Wm. Buckley’s example of one man pushing an old lady in front of a bus, and another pushing her out of the way of a bus. You can’t condemn both for being old-lady pushers.

    And don’t give me any “ends justifies the means” crap, either. Machiavelli’s ends weren’t all that great to begin with, so what did it matter what his means were?

16. Comment by ThomasD on 7/2 @ 12:01 pm #

    Lock Hitch in a room and force him to drink cheap white wine from a box.

    He’d crack like a walnut.

17. Comment by Pablo on 7/2 @ 12:12 pm #

    Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl?

    KSM, specifically. Sorry, no outrage here. My thanks go out to those who cracked that particular nut.

18. Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/2 @ 12:15 pm #

    Waterboarding is not torture. Its use in SERE training is only because it is as close to torture as we can legally get to give those guys realistic training. In addition, the guys who go to SERE school each represent a large investment in time and money. Nothing is going to be done to them that is actually damaging.

19. Comment by Thomass on 7/2 @ 12:21 pm #

    Comment by Go_Fish on 7/2 @ 9:05 am #

    “Wow. Whatever your opinion of Hitch, you certainly have to admire his willingness to put his money where his mouth is. I don’t always agree with his opinions, but I have a newfound respect for them.”

    I already respected him and as a result I now have to give his opinion of waterboarding a lot of weight… so if he thinks it really is torture then I might have to change my mind and agree it is… Cr*p…

20. Comment by Thomass on 7/2 @ 12:24 pm #

    Comment by Karl on 7/2 @ 11:23 am #

    “Hitch also writes this:…….”

    That quote was also important to consider…

21. Comment by CArin -BONC on 7/2 @ 12:27 pm #

    Honestly, Hitch is – what -59, and he’s not looking like he’s in the greatest of shape? Running could have been considered torture by him at this point.

    I’m perfectly fine with something that seems an awfully LOT like torture, but doesn’t involve anything like cutting off appendages, scarring, etc.

22. Comment by happyfeet on 7/2 @ 12:38 pm #

    This should give Mr. Hitchens a lot of incentive to cooperate I think.

23. Comment by Dan Collins on 7/2 @ 12:38 pm #

    You mean you approve of public middle school, CArin?

24. Comment by Ouroboros on 7/2 @ 12:39 pm #

    Then the question comes down to one of semantics. Do we define “torture” as the act of causing the subject to experience severe pain or anguish (physical or psychological coercion) or does the term only apply if lasting physical, psychological or emotional damage results from treatment..?

    If the former, then certainly water boarding qualifies as a form of torture. If the latter, then not. SERE training is where I experienced it. I’d say rather that it’s the form of torture commonly used in that training because it doesn’t do lasting damage if properly controlled.. not because it’s not a form of torture. Operators are an investment of much time and money.

    I will say that the one person I saw ‘break’ under the training had been subjected to purely psychological manipulation that didn’t involve any physical pain at all.. The interrogators determined that one young soldier was deathly afraid of snakes and so, capitalized on it by locking him in a drum with several live snakes.. (telling him they were cotton mouths).. By morning they carried the twitching and sobbing guy off to the hospital.. Was he tortured? Depends on semantics..

25. Comment by Cincinnatus on 7/2 @ 12:46 pm #

    Like Wm. Buckley’s example of one man pushing an old lady in front of a bus, and another pushing her out of the way of a bus. You can’t condemn both for being old-lady pushers.

    That perfectly sums up the whole dilemma. This issue is a good enough reason to give up entirely on trying to use logic and reason on the hard left. Looking up the word dilemma in the dictionary would broaden their understanding.

26. Comment by CArin -BONC on 7/2 @ 12:49 pm #

    Dan, I think the fact that I home school would inform you of my opinion on middle school.

27. Comment by Additional Blond Agent on 7/2 @ 1:13 pm #

    As Ann Althouse, goofy as she can be sometimes, points out, if Hitchens thinks waterboarding is torture, perhaps he should try some of the old-time medieval tortures like having one’s toenails pulled out with redhot pincers.

    That might recalibrate his opinion in this situation. My take is that Hitchens is right more often than the average leftist, but he still leaves quite a bit to be desired in the logic department.

28. Comment by sherlock on 7/2 @ 1:30 pm #

    So, waterboarding is torture, but not real torture. Thanks for clearing that up Hitchens, you twit.

    I say waterboard him again until he can make up his frigging mind.

29. Comment by urthshu on 7/2 @ 2:21 pm #

    Given that this is the only form of torture in the world that journalists seem to volunteer for, I don’t really think of it as torture.

30. Comment by Steven on 7/2 @ 2:41 pm #

    It’s been done, by a greater talent.

31. Comment by The Lost Dog on 7/2 @ 3:34 pm #

    As usual, Hitchens is fascinating.

    Although he comes down on the side of “water-boarding is torture”, he presents all sides, as most “journalists” refuse to do these days. Imagine Olberasshole doing this story (although it makes me laugh to even tTHINK that he would have the balls to do what Hitchens did).

    Regardless of his conclusions, he is more of a serious Hunter Thompson than a radical ideologue.

    Hitch makes a point of presenting ALL of the evidence, and not trying to score political points with selective truth. I admire that, because that sort of journalism is just about extinct.

32. Comment by ahem on 7/2 @ 5:49 pm #

    Given that this is the only form of torture in the world that journalists seem to volunteer for, I don’t really think of it as torture.

    Bullseye!

33. Comment by sashal on 7/2 @ 7:06 pm #

    On another hand,Dan, don’t you think it proves a total lack of imagination on Hitchens’ part? Will he be taking a bread-knife to his neck next week to prove that Daniel Pearl really suffered? Without his testimonial who’d have believed waterboarding was torturous?

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