on Jul 15th, 2008Christopher Hitchens Has Himself Waterboarded
Hitchens on Being Waterboarded
Video of Hitchens Actually Being Waterboarded
There’s something almost giggle inspiring about the idea of Christopher Hitchens being waterboarded, until you read the accompanying article and watch the video. And then its deadly serious. Hitchens, who had previously rejected waterboarding as torture, accepted a challenge from Vanity Fair to be waterboarded himself. After the experience he more or less repudiates his stance on the practice, although without quite going the distance and condemning America’s use of torture completely and unequivocally.
The article itself is alternately frustrating and encouraging. Encouraging that a proponent of waterboarding can have his mind changed so thoroughly. Frustrating because do you really need to be waterboarded yourself to decide that its torture? What kind of insane arrogance and failure of imagination does it take to pretend that being systematically drowned by captors does not constitute torture until its actually done to you?*
However, if this is what it takes I’ll gladly volunteer to perform “enhanced interrogation” on any number of right wing media pundits until they agree that torture is torture, that it is an immoral practice, that it violates treaties that the US belongs to, and if they will join their voices to the international calls for the US to stop torturing her prisoners of war.
*This lack of imagination and arrogance seems to be the a priori of many right wing talking points:
“I’ve never experienced prejudice, so racism doesn’t really exist.”
“I worked my way into fabulous wealth, I can’t imagine any set of circumstance that would prevent every US citizen from being fabulously wealthy just like me. It just takes work.”
“I can afford insurance, why can’t you? All it takes is budgeting.”