Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

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  • seanz
    Resilient?
    • Nov 2006
    • 23662

    Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

    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.
    We don't know how lucky we are....
  • Osborne Russell
    Senior Member
    • Mar 2006
    • 27131

    #2
    Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

    You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method.
    A Blue is a Red who's been water-boarded ?!?
    Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

    Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017)​

    Comment

    • seanz
      Resilient?
      • Nov 2006
      • 23662

      #3
      Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

      Hitchens could be described as purple........now operating in a gray area.

      Good description of the technique in the article, might remove doubt about whether or not waterboarding is torture.
      We don't know how lucky we are....

      Comment

      • Osborne Russell
        Senior Member
        • Mar 2006
        • 27131

        #4
        Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

        I don't get the "I had myself water-boarded, just to be sure" thing. I heard that some high-level Justice Department lawyer had himself done, and later resigned from the Department over the issue.

        Why do they think it was invented, and why do they think it was prohibited?
        Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

        Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017)​

        Comment

        • Shang
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2000
          • 10021

          #5
          Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

          I can't say honestly that I know Christopher Hitchens well, but we've had coffee together a few times while I railed at him about smoking,
          However I envy him his experience regarding foreign affairs.
          While his narrative about waterboarding is no doubt true it stands that torturer is evil and should not be done.

          ...Otherwise we cannot claim ourselves to be the Good Guys...
          and the road to heaven is likely to be difficult...

          Comment

          • Tylerdurden
            Banned
            • Jul 2006
            • 19903

            #6
            Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

            I think what the majority still don't understand is that the CIA and other entity's including those as common as the Chicago police used torture for as long as they existed.
            The torture we read about now is not for the Arabs but instead for us. Its meant to affect the minds of dissidents and suppress free speech or challenges to the powers that be.
            Torture affects both sides, don't let anyone kid you on that.

            Comment

            • Andrew Craig-Bennett
              Who?
              • Aug 1999
              • 28484

              #7
              Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

              My late grandfather-in-law, a man I respected and admired, was waterboarded by the Japanese during WW2.

              He never forgave them, to the point of never owning a Japanese-made item and never using a bridge over a local river that had been built with Japanese aid.
              IMAGINES VEL NON FUERINT

              Comment

              • Osborne Russell
                Senior Member
                • Mar 2006
                • 27131

                #8
                Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

                Originally posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett
                He never forgave them, to the point of never owning a Japanese-made item and never using a bridge over a local river that had been built with Japanese aid.
                I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I mean, specifically, what did he object to? On what grounds?

                There used to be a concept, "decency", which was assumed to have cultural inertia and popular support. But it seems that you can only coast along on that assumption so far before you have to do some routine maintenance. What do people think it means?
                Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

                Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017)​

                Comment

                • Andrew Craig-Bennett
                  Who?
                  • Aug 1999
                  • 28484

                  #9
                  Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

                  He objected to being rounded up, made to stand in the back of a truck with his hands tied behind him with fencing wire, driven, with about twenty others, along a dirt track to the local Kempeitai station and waterboarded to get him to confess to doing something he knew nothing about (which made it hard to confess to).

                  It was a powerful objection; it lasted 56 years.
                  IMAGINES VEL NON FUERINT

                  Comment

                  • Andrew Craig-Bennett
                    Who?
                    • Aug 1999
                    • 28484

                    #10
                    Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

                    Let me put that another way; he was a youngish man, recently married, in a country occupied by a foreign army - which had, of course, come to "liberate" it - they always do. This particular army was liberating fellow Asians from Western colonial rule. The occupying army could not speak the olcal languages, for the most part, so they were very uneasy about groups of young men congregating and talking amongst themselves.

                    So he was picked up and taken in on suspicion, and interrogated with the aid of water boarding. After a few days, they let him go.

                    And he hated them for the next 56 years, until he died. He was a very devout Christian and an elder of his church, so his religion taught him to forgive, but he found that rather hard, so far as the nation that had water boarded him was concerned.

                    Islam emphasises that last point rather less, I am told.
                    IMAGINES VEL NON FUERINT

                    Comment

                    • Osborne Russell
                      Senior Member
                      • Mar 2006
                      • 27131

                      #11
                      Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

                      Let me get this straight -- he was an unlawful combatant, right?
                      Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

                      Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017)​

                      Comment

                      • Andrew Craig-Bennett
                        Who?
                        • Aug 1999
                        • 28484

                        #12
                        Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

                        He told me he was a fisherman!

                        Of course, he would say that, wouldn't he?

                        His cover was pretty good though; by the time I dated his granddaughter, all her uncles were fish merchants, fish processors, fish farmers and fishery equipment suppliers!
                        IMAGINES VEL NON FUERINT

                        Comment

                        • Osborne Russell
                          Senior Member
                          • Mar 2006
                          • 27131

                          #13
                          Re: Christopher Hitchens does Penance.

                          They may not be terrorists, but they harbor them and supply them with fish. Just as bad.
                          Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

                          Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017)​

                          Comment

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