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| 5/24 |
| 2008/7/2-6 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:50450 Activity:moderate |
7/2 Christopher Hitchens on Waterboarding: "Believe me, it's torture."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/02/humanrights.usa
\_ Gee, how nice of him to change his mind now. Rats. Ships.
Sinking.
\_ As much as I dislike Christopher Hitchens, it seems hard to
fault him for this. He had the courage to back up his claim
that waterboarding wasn't torture by trying it out, and then
(having learned what it was like) he admitted he'd been wrong.
I wish everyone was so principled.
\_ 4 years too late... I don't have much sympathy for anyone
who defended torture as strongly as that man did.
\_ FLIP FLOPPER!
\_ And why should I care what he thinks?
\_ Because he has been a tireless defender of the technique as not
being torture and has now been convinced, by experience, that it
is. If you believe that it is not, perhaps you should try it out
yourself.
\_ Torture is any experience so horrible that no-one would consider
trying it out simply for the purpose of writing a Vanity Fair
article about what it's like.
http://sweasel.com/archives/1269
\_ If he'd thought it was torture before he experienced it, he
would not have tried it out. Now that he's experienced it, he
recognizes it as torture and would not do it again.
\_ Yah, see here's the thing, torture is something that you know
you wouldn't try it even before you try it.
\- i think that is true for "medieval" type
torture [gouging out eyeballs], and highly
likely for modern "clinical" pain-inducing
torture [electric wire between teeth] but
i dont think it is necessarily possibly to
i dont think it is necessarily possible to
know the effects of things like sleep deprivation,
and psychological/terror oriented approaches such
as mock executions [russian roulette style, fake
firing squad, blind folded and dropped from
firing squad, blindfolded and dropped from
helicopter etc] until you've "been there/done that".
anyway, i thought this was a settled issue given
that all the "warriors" [mccain etc] said "wboaring
\_ Not by a long shot. Quite a few
military members said *they'd* been
waterboarded, and said they had no
problem with us doing it to others.
\- who is a "military member" who
has said "it's ok if somebody
waterboards US troops when
captured".
is totally clearly over the line" and it was only
chickhawks [bush, cheney, limbaugh] either saying
it wasnt clear or it was like frat hazing.
i was was captured and you said you were going to
if was was captured and you said you were going to
put me in the iron maiden, i'd talk right way.
if you threatened to waterboard me, i might go
for a minute or two. --psb
\_ McCain voted to support waterboarding. -tom
\_ I missed that. A point in his favor. -emarkp
\_ I'm sorry, "emarkp", but I
think you need some introspection on
whether you're serious about your
religion and whether your support of
torture is really consistent with
that.
\_ Why the quotes? It really is me, and I
find it laughable when someone else tells
me what my religion should be.
Especially the prolific atheist
relgion-haters here (though I obviously I
don't know if you're one of them).
-emarkp
\_ The quotes were simply to open
the door to the idea that someone
was masquerading as you to make
you look bad. Now I'm forced to
go with the person below: your
"religion" is a hollow sanctimonious
shell over your hateful and vile
core.
\_ yeah, it's easy as an atheist to
underestimate the ability of
religious people to rationalize
whatever it is they want to do
or believe. -tom
\_ You should be careful trying to
apply your childish understand of
something to a grown-up discussion.
-emarkp
\_ You're right, no one can tell you
what your religion is or should be.
But thanks to threads like this one
we know that whatever your beliefs
are, they serve as little more than
a hollow sanctimonious shell over
your hateful and vile core.
\_ you're an idiot.
\_ I don't understand, shouldn't you be
calling him evil rather than stupid? This
looks like a clear values call. -- ilyas
\_ and anyone disagreeing with your opinion
is an idiot. Great logic, comrade! Welcome
to People's Republic of California.
\_ No, I am tom! Do not anger me!
\_ I disagree with people who are not
idiots all the time. But *you* are
an idiot. -tom
\_ I believe you are confusing torture with deterrents.
\_http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/Politics/Schelling.q
\_ I wouldn't try waterboarding, but I'm not a fucking
idiot like Christopher Hitchens. -tom |
| 5/24 |
|
| www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/02/humanrights.usa The Guardian, * Wednesday July 2, 2008 Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of "extreme interrogation" and "outright torture". From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens' belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding - known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain "high-value clients" in Iraq and elsewhere - must fall under the former heading. Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer's critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. In August's edition of Vanity Fair, you can read all about it, and see more photographs of the "wheezing, paunchy, 59-year-old scribbler", his head hooded, being subjected to this most terrifying of ordeals by veterans of the US Special Forces. Hitchens recounts how he was lashed tightly to a sloping board, then, "on top of the hood, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose ... I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and - as you might expect - inhale in turn." That, he says, "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, flooded more with sheer panic than with water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal" and felt the "unbelievable relief" of being pulled upright. The "official lie" about waterboarding, Hitchens says, is that it "simulates the feeling of drowning". He rehearses the intellectual arguments, both for ("It's nothing compared to what they do to us") and against ("It opens a door that can't be closed"). But the Hitch's thoroughly empirical conclusion is simple. As Vanity Fair's title puts it: "Believe me, it's torture." |
| sweasel.com/archives/1269 I am indebted to Christopher Hitchens Ever since we began this national conversation on torture and whether we ought to be in the business of it, I have gone NUTS trying to come up with a proper definition. After all, how can I say whether I'm for it or agin' it if I don't know what it is? Thanks to Hitchens, I now have a definition I can live with: Torture is any experience so horrible that no-one would consider trying it out simply for the purpose of writing a Vanity Fair article about what it's like. Scubafreak Time: July 2, 2008, 1:32 pm I remember when the Mythbusters tested Chinese Water Torture. I also know several people who consider "torture" to be a form of pleasurable intimacy (within strict guidelines that are set up beforehand). There can be no real definition of torture because there are too many varying opinions. " Personally, I consider Spongebob and Barney the Dinosaur to be cruel and unusual punishment, but then, i'm weird that way. Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 1:35 pm I used to be a huge fan of Barney. There was this one kid that they kept in the cast until he was way too old to be hanging around with a pretend dinosaur. When he grows up, he's going to look back on that and either go gay or put a bullet in his head. I used to tell my friends who had barney-aflicted children that the best antidote to Barney was "Jurassic Park". Let them see hte T-Rex and tell them "Ooo, Barney grew up!" Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 1:42 pm Super-de-duper! Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 2:33 pm Holy SHIT there's an amazing thunderstorm rolling through Rhode Island right now! All us cubicle-monkeys pressed our noses to the glass and watched this monster roll up. Sometimes I get tense from an inability to put to words a very important thought. I had been feeling that way about the torture debate and now I have it. There are about a hundred other similar thoughts but let's deal with one at a time. Comment from porknbean Time: July 2, 2008, 3:28 pm Depends on who is getting the treatment' as to what torture would be. Comment from Allen Time: July 2, 2008, 3:41 pm Also per the article... Torture is any experience so horrible that it is done to some US soldiers as a routine form of training. They put you in a wall locker buried in the ground and slowly fill it with water. You have to arch your back to just keep your nostrils out of the water. Moron Pundit Time: July 2, 2008, 4:12 pm Sometimes that itch in the ear is so frustrating as to almost draw me completely away from politics. I attempt to start explaining the unifying disorder at the core of modern leftism (because I know for a fact it is one overriding disorder of thought) and my teeth start to grate as I get close but win no cigar. As a computer programmer, this happens to me a lot when I push my mind toward a task that won't yield. I have often given myself physical pain and disorientation. So, if anyone would like to help narrow down the unifying straing of damaged thinking that leads to leftism, I'd like to know. I feel strongly that if that thought could be articulated, it could be used to convince many of them how wrong they are. Scubafreak Time: July 2, 2008, 5:08 pm I nose how it goes, BC. They had to break each of mine into 4 pieces each to get them out, because the roots were twisted around the nerve. Add a major case of dry socket to that and you have a sure plan for a party...... I wanted to go back every day until I had exhausted my supply of teeth. That really is the Philosopher's Stone, MP -- the ultimate liberal descriptor. When I was a kid, I think there was a coherent liberal philosophy; now it has fragmented into a bunch of unrelated (and sometimes conflicting) constituencies. Here's a part of the thing, though: it doesn't matter what happens, it matters what your intentions were. That explains how they can get behind -- and STAY behind -- things like welfare which demonstrably hurt the people they're intended to help. Comment from Allen Time: July 2, 2008, 5:11 pm Weasel, the instructors had far worse things done to them for real. I think they had an average time of 4 years in a POW camp. bad cat robot Time: July 2, 2008, 5:22 pm I lurve IV painkillers, even when my stupid veins dodge and weave to avoid the needle and I end up looking like a junkie afterwards. I vividly recall the dentist bracing his knee against the chair to get leverage, and wondering if my jaw was going to get pulled off. Again, all *completely legal* and Amnesty International never returned my calls. Dave in Texas Time: July 2, 2008, 5:52 pm I like the definition. But I still don't give a shit what they did or do to KSM to get him to talk. I'm pretty sure a blowtorch and a pair of pliers meets the definition of "torture". Comment from Allen Time: July 2, 2008, 5:55 pm MP it's really rather straightforward. Scubafreak Time: July 2, 2008, 6:13 pm Actually, I think that the anti-torture crowd is a little distracted right now. Starbucks has announced the closure of 600+ stores nationwide. The wailing and mourning is audible all the way out here in Colorado....... Moron Pundit Time: July 2, 2008, 6:27 pm I was going to link to this on DPUD too... As for the liberal mindset, I think you hit on a bit part of my goal by suggesting that they have no internally consistent philosophy. If only there were a way to demonstrate how completely illogical it all is... unfortunately, one of their tenets is that every case is different and everything is a gray area and nobody can really "know" anything. Those soviets really designed a perfectly destructive mindset. Because I tend to utilitarianism when it comes to national security, I really don't see the problem with torture. We should do whatever we need to, no matter what it is, to protect our national security. Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 6:30 pm Allen's got a good take there. When it doesn't work as you thought, declare that it wasn't done right, or it needs more funding, or it was sabotaged by reactionaries. And they call this science, because it involves planning and experimentation. Muslihoon Time: July 2, 2008, 6:55 pm I have a completely off-topic for you smart and principled people: due to Obama's skin color, is there a difference between calling Bush a chip and calling Obama a chimp? Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 7:07 pm It's simply the wrong place to go, Musli. It's like poking fun at McCain's prisoner of war status: it's a stupid spot to try and stick a fork. But because of our long iconographic history of comparing Africans to monkeys, it's nuclear stupid to do it with Obama. Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 7:08 pm And our past. Scubafreak Time: July 2, 2008, 7:15 pm Yes, weasie, I have to admit, he IS a FLAMING Homo-Sapiens..... Taking them as a representation of the population (they're pretty normal, apart from the one who used to be married to that acne-ridden, shit-eating monkey, Brad Pitt, so nobody would think he was queer), that's - what - 17%? Next time I see someone scuffling out of the dentists holding a blood-soaked tissue-wad to their mouth, I'll run them down in my car and shout, It's for your own good, you degenerate junkie' over my shoulder. Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 7:18 pm Ohmigosh! Dave in Texas from Ace's place and now See-Dubya from Michelle's. If you want to poke fun at Obama in a caricature like fashion, Alfred E Neumann, "What me Worry" might be the way to go. He was naive, clueless, and had the big ears thing going for him. Comment from S Weasel Time: July 2, 2008, 7:22 pm No, Gibby, no -- junkies are your friends. Comment from Allen Time: July 2, 2008, 7:35 pm Weasel, here's an opportunity fer ya. There is an open article on Uncyclopedia for "space weasels." Scubafreak Time: July 2, 2008, 7:36 pm Jeeze, I didn't get ANY good drugs when they did mine. Just a needle in the gums that felt like it was a foot or so long, and not nearly enough novicane. The crunching, tugging and swearing while they sectioned and extracted the wisdoms was an eye opener, espscially when he had to plant his knee in my chest for leverage........ As you've proba... |
| home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/Politics/Schelling.q To exploit a capacity for hurting and inflicting damage one needs to know what an adversary treasures and what scares him and one needs the adversary to understand what behavior of his will cause the the violence to be inflicted and what will cause it to be withheld. The pain and suffering have to appear contingent on his behavior; it is not alone the threat that is effective--the threat of pain or loss if he fails to comply--but the corresponding assurance, possibly an implicit one, that he can avoid the pain or loss if he does comply. The prospect of certain death may stun him, but it gives him no choice. Coercion by threat or damage also requires that our interests and our opponent's not be absolutely opposed. If his pain were our greatest delight and our satisfaction his greatest woe, we would just proceed to hurt and to frustrate each other. It is when his pain gives us little or no satisfaction compared with what he can do for us, and the action or inaction that satisfies us costs him less than the pain we can cause, that there is room for coercion. Coercion requires finding a bargain, arranging for him to be better off doing what we want--worse off not only what we want--when he takes the threatened penalty into account. Military strategy can no longer be though of, as it could be for some countries in some eras, as the science of military victory. It is now equally, if not more, the art of coercion, of intimidation and deterrence. The instruments of war are more punitive than acquisitive. Military strategy, whether we like it or not, has become the diplomacy of violence. |