6 ms·

Vanity Fair writer agrees to be waterboarded in a demonstration, video

17 points by markbao 18y ago

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
markbao 18y ago
He doesn't even last 30 seconds. Horrifying.
- PStamatiou 18y ago
  "CIA officers who have subjected themselves to the technique have lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in."
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  And he knew the entire time that they werent going to kill him, he could stop it, and he wouldnt be subjected to it again.
gruseom 18y ago
Hitchens is one of the leading intellectuals of our time, as well as a great wit and a master of the English language. Referring to him as "Vanity Fair writer" is like referring to Orwell as "Former restaurant worker".
- ajross 18y ago
  Dude, he's a pundit. A big name pundit, to be sure, but hardly the second coming of Benjamin Franklin.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    Pundits are largely hacks. Hitchens seems to me more in the tradition of the public intellectual (I think Orwell's a fair reference point). He's in the media game but not nearly as much of it as, say, David Brooks. He's also pretty fearless about breaking the rules. Pundits don't do that. I'm really not as big a fan of Hitchens as my comment made it sound. There's just one thing that makes me giddy and that is his fabulous English style. That exquisite combination of literacy and wit really does belong to a great lineage, and I love it. That's probably why the reference to "Vanity Fair writer" got my goat. Todd Purdum is a Vanity Fair writer. Christopher Hitchens is Christopher Hitchens. Since I'm already going on and on about this (and well into baitland for the !HN crowd), I have a couple questions. I'd love to hear some credible answers if anyone's game. So: among the pundit and journalist classes, 1. Who else would have the integrity or the balls to have himself waterboarded in order to be able to write meaningfully about torture? 2. Who else would, or could, ever write something like this: Stone earned himself constant surveillance from an already hostile F.B.I. until the foul racist and pervert J. Edgar Hoover finally turned into carrion on a full-time basis in 1972. Doesn't sound like punditry to me!
    - andreyf 18y ago
      Doesn't sound like punditry to me! Sounds like Christopher Hitchens, one and only :)
- mynameishere 18y ago
  Hitchens is one of the leading intellectuals of our time Sorry, I couldn't downmod that hard or fast enough. Hitchens is a warmed-over Trotskyist. The fact that he ever had doubts about water torture's status as torture should give you a clue into his mental state.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    Really? I'm curious why you say that, and also why you think the two ("warmed-over Trotskyist" and "leading intellectual") must automatically be incompatible. I certainly don't admire him in every respect. But he changed a lot since 1968, and even then had an individualist streak that was a little deviant for the hard left. Edit (responding to your edit :)) - I don't know of any evidence that he doubted it before. I would guess the point of the experiment was more to be able to write about it from experience.
    - mynameishere 18y ago
      I guess I've just recoiled against everything he's said. For a sample, look under the heading "On the 2003 invasion of Iraq". http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens It doesn't warrant much elaboration. I mean, I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge. Well, whatever. The vietcong [1] are still great heroes to him, I suppose. Fine. But the motivations of ordinary men don't change from place to place, and the various arab defenders and the vietnamese communists are almost surely identical morally. His defense of the Iraqi war is pure mind-fuck. I'm not completely against the war, but I understand its grand strategic purpose: To secure vast and necessary oil reserves from encroachment by Russia and China (the latter has been securing incredible resources in Africa, for example. This is no small threat.) But what's his motivation?--it's impossible to say. He just seems inspired by dead ideology. [1] There was no shortage of atrocities or terrorist acts committed by the vietcong. I understand this as asymmetrical warfare. Hitchens understands this as good vs. evil. Specifically, good.
patrickg-zill 18y ago
I like Hitchens, however, the waterboarding I saw in the video does not match the description of waterboarding on Wikipedia: "which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning". I was under the impression that in Hitchens' case there was no cellophane over his mouth and nose. Also the inverted (head is lower than feet) placement of the person was not done either, as Hitchens seems to be on a level surface. The reason for being inverted is supposed to be both a loss of control, plus it is easier to stimulate the gag reflex.
- gruseom 18y ago
  Good points (though I suppose they didn't use cellophane during the Spanish Inquisition either). Even more than that is this: flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me Real torturers don't do pre-arranged signals. This is a huge difference. It means that real waterboarding and what Hitchens endured aren't even in the same category. Hitchens' experience would be better described as a kind of lower bound for what people being waterboarded go through. And he does in fact say so in the final paragraph. Edit: interestingly, it turns out that he didn't give the pre-arranged signal. He thought he did, but what actually happened was that he lost consciousness.
  - dkokelley 18y ago
    He lost consciousness? I thought he said he practically threw the metal pieces to the ground, to the extent he could even though his hands were bound.
    - gruseom 18y ago
      I was completely convinced that, when the water pressure had become intolerable, I had firmly uttered the pre-determined code word that would cause it to cease. But my interrogator told me that, rather to his surprise, I had not spoken a word. I had activated the "dead man’s handle" that signaled the onset of unconsciousness. I interpreted this to mean that he lost consciousness and that the (what shall we call them...) administrators were the ones who made the decision to stop. Reading it again, though, I see that's not obvious. I confess I haven't yet found the stomach to watch the video. Perhaps it clarifies things? Edit: perhaps his meaning was that he felt himself blacking out, thought he gave the spoken signal, but in fact gave a nonverbal (but still pre-arranged) signal. In any case, the important point is that there were agreed-upon signals to stop the torture, whether he used them or not.
davidw 18y ago
So is the 'flag' button for stuff like this, that is not hacker news in the slightest? What next, a series of taser articles?
signa11 18y ago
William Thackeray lives !!!
gruseom 18y ago
If anyone's still reading this thread, I ran across a great little analysis by George Packer that is both admiring and critical of Hitchens: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/07/i-came-back-fro.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/07/i...

17 points by markbao 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

markbao 18y ago

He doesn't even last 30 seconds. Horrifying.

PStamatiou 18y ago
"CIA officers who have subjected themselves to the technique have lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in."
mattmaroon 18y ago
And he knew the entire time that they werent going to kill him, he could stop it, and he wouldnt be subjected to it again.

gruseom 18y ago

Hitchens is one of the leading intellectuals of our time, as well as a great wit and a master of the English language. Referring to him as "Vanity Fair writer" is like referring to Orwell as "Former restaurant worker".

ajross 18y ago
Dude, he's a pundit. A big name pundit, to be sure, but hardly the second coming of Benjamin Franklin.
- gruseom 18y ago
  Pundits are largely hacks. Hitchens seems to me more in the tradition of the public intellectual (I think Orwell's a fair reference point). He's in the media game but not nearly as much of it as, say, David Brooks. He's also pretty fearless about breaking the rules. Pundits don't do that. I'm really not as big a fan of Hitchens as my comment made it sound. There's just one thing that makes me giddy and that is his fabulous English style. That exquisite combination of literacy and wit really does belong to a great lineage, and I love it. That's probably why the reference to "Vanity Fair writer" got my goat. Todd Purdum is a Vanity Fair writer. Christopher Hitchens is Christopher Hitchens. Since I'm already going on and on about this (and well into baitland for the !HN crowd), I have a couple questions. I'd love to hear some credible answers if anyone's game. So: among the pundit and journalist classes, 1. Who else would have the integrity or the balls to have himself waterboarded in order to be able to write meaningfully about torture? 2. Who else would, or could, ever write something like this: Stone earned himself constant surveillance from an already hostile F.B.I. until the foul racist and pervert J. Edgar Hoover finally turned into carrion on a full-time basis in 1972. Doesn't sound like punditry to me!
  - andreyf 18y ago
    Doesn't sound like punditry to me! Sounds like Christopher Hitchens, one and only :)
mynameishere 18y ago
Hitchens is one of the leading intellectuals of our time Sorry, I couldn't downmod that hard or fast enough. Hitchens is a warmed-over Trotskyist. The fact that he ever had doubts about water torture's status as torture should give you a clue into his mental state.
- gruseom 18y ago
  Really? I'm curious why you say that, and also why you think the two ("warmed-over Trotskyist" and "leading intellectual") must automatically be incompatible. I certainly don't admire him in every respect. But he changed a lot since 1968, and even then had an individualist streak that was a little deviant for the hard left. Edit (responding to your edit :)) - I don't know of any evidence that he doubted it before. I would guess the point of the experiment was more to be able to write about it from experience.
  - mynameishere 18y ago
    I guess I've just recoiled against everything he's said. For a sample, look under the heading "On the 2003 invasion of Iraq". http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens It doesn't warrant much elaboration. I mean, I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge. Well, whatever. The vietcong [1] are still great heroes to him, I suppose. Fine. But the motivations of ordinary men don't change from place to place, and the various arab defenders and the vietnamese communists are almost surely identical morally. His defense of the Iraqi war is pure mind-fuck. I'm not completely against the war, but I understand its grand strategic purpose: To secure vast and necessary oil reserves from encroachment by Russia and China (the latter has been securing incredible resources in Africa, for example. This is no small threat.) But what's his motivation?--it's impossible to say. He just seems inspired by dead ideology. [1] There was no shortage of atrocities or terrorist acts committed by the vietcong. I understand this as asymmetrical warfare. Hitchens understands this as good vs. evil. Specifically, good.

patrickg-zill 18y ago

I like Hitchens, however, the waterboarding I saw in the video does not match the description of waterboarding on Wikipedia: "which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning". I was under the impression that in Hitchens' case there was no cellophane over his mouth and nose. Also the inverted (head is lower than feet) placement of the person was not done either, as Hitchens seems to be on a level surface. The reason for being inverted is supposed to be both a loss of control, plus it is easier to stimulate the gag reflex.

gruseom 18y ago
Good points (though I suppose they didn't use cellophane during the Spanish Inquisition either). Even more than that is this: flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me Real torturers don't do pre-arranged signals. This is a huge difference. It means that real waterboarding and what Hitchens endured aren't even in the same category. Hitchens' experience would be better described as a kind of lower bound for what people being waterboarded go through. And he does in fact say so in the final paragraph. Edit: interestingly, it turns out that he didn't give the pre-arranged signal. He thought he did, but what actually happened was that he lost consciousness.
- dkokelley 18y ago
  He lost consciousness? I thought he said he practically threw the metal pieces to the ground, to the extent he could even though his hands were bound.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    I was completely convinced that, when the water pressure had become intolerable, I had firmly uttered the pre-determined code word that would cause it to cease. But my interrogator told me that, rather to his surprise, I had not spoken a word. I had activated the "dead man’s handle" that signaled the onset of unconsciousness. I interpreted this to mean that he lost consciousness and that the (what shall we call them...) administrators were the ones who made the decision to stop. Reading it again, though, I see that's not obvious. I confess I haven't yet found the stomach to watch the video. Perhaps it clarifies things? Edit: perhaps his meaning was that he felt himself blacking out, thought he gave the spoken signal, but in fact gave a nonverbal (but still pre-arranged) signal. In any case, the important point is that there were agreed-upon signals to stop the torture, whether he used them or not.

davidw 18y ago

So is the 'flag' button for stuff like this, that is not hacker news in the slightest? What next, a series of taser articles?

signa11 18y ago

William Thackeray lives !!!

gruseom 18y ago

If anyone's still reading this thread, I ran across a great little analysis by George Packer that is both admiring and critical of Hitchens: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/07/i-came-back-fro.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/07/i...