Here's war-supporting 'liberal' journalist Christopher Hitchens trying it:
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Torture made easy
Maybe it's an indictment of the state of American journalism, but it's taken Playboy to demonstrate waterboarding. Playboy's journalist bet that he could manage 15 seconds of this simulated drowning: he lasted 5-6 seconds before panicking and ending the experiment - even without the guns, shouting and intimidation that one assumes came with the 'real' experience. One Guantanamo inmate had the treatment nearly 200 times in a month. Do you think he provided detailed, accurate and honest testimony? Or might he have said anything that would end the torture for a few minutes?
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3 comments:
Please, this is too important, let's not confuse things here: To me, it is not and can never be about getting "detailed, accurate and honest testimony". I know what you mean. You want to say that it doesn't work. But even that, I feel, is beside the point. For even if it worked and you'd get the desired information, this is simply not possible!
I'm sure I'd be ready to do all sorts of things if my child got abducted and I had the kidnapper there in front of me. But that's why we have invented something to protect ourselves from ourselves, the Human Rights for example. But maybe we don't deserve such rights. Maybe being human means nothing at all.
You're absolutely right - the first objection to torture should be moral. However, thanks to the reactionary society we live in, I find it hard to get people to see it in this way. When talking to the right, you have to approach it in ways they understand - Cheney is all over the US media this week claiming that torture should continue because it works: there's no point discussing human rights with people like him.
Well, give him a break! After all, his first name is Dick.
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