Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens Undergoes Waterboarding

Just in case the revelation that American torturers took their cues from that model of moral clarity that was the Chinese Communist regime hasn't fully convinced you that the practice is unquestionably, incontrovertibly evil, Christopher Hitchens' column in the August 2008 Vanity Fair, "Believe Me, It's Torture," ought to drive the point home. That is, if the accompanying video, available online at Vanity Fair's website, doesn't do it first.

In the video, Christopher Hitchens is brought, hooded and bound, into an austere looking storage room, and placed on a board, slightly elevated at its foot. He is instructed by the similarly masked interrogators on how to call a halt to the procedure, either through a safe word - "red" - or by releasing the "dead man's handle" - a metal object placed in each hand. A towel is placed over his face and one of the interrogators begins pouring water on Hitchens' face from an ordinary-looking milk carton. The interrogators demonstrate no more aggression that one might when watering a houseplant. In fact, the process looks so unremarkable that you begin to wonder if they aren't simply "warming Hitchens up" for something worse.

Seventeen seconds pass, and then Hitchens drops the dead man's handle. When the hood is removed, it is jarring to see how panic-stricken Hitchens looks.

In the video, Hitchens describes the experience:

They told me that when I activated the 'dead man's handle' - which is a simple process, you simply release something, let it go - I didn't do that. I practically, even though my hands were bound, I...as near as I could...I threw the thing out of my hand. I mean, I really wanted it to stop.

I could swear I shouted the code word, but I hadn't.

Everything completely goes on you when you're breathing water. You can't think about anything else.

It would be bad enough if you did have something. Suppose if they wanted to know where a relative of yours was...or a lover. You feel, "Well, I'm going to betray them now. Because this has to come to an end. I can't take this anymore." But what if you didn't have anything? What if you'd got the wrong guy? Then you would be in danger of losing your mind very quickly.

That last paragraph, I believe, is critical, especially considering the torture practices of the Chinese Communists - who we are now emulating - were designed to elicit false confessions from those who were tortured.

Attention should be paid to the aftermath of the experience as well, which Hitchens relates thusly:

As a result of this very brief experience, if I do anything that gets my heart rate up, and I'm breathing hard, panting, I have a slight panic sensation that I'm not going to be able to catch my breath again...lately I've been having this feeling of waking up feeling smothered, trying to push everything off my face.

It takes only seventeen seconds to impact the life of an innocent man.

PREVIOUSLY, ON THE HUFFINGTON POST: Former U.S. Navy Seal Kaj Larsen experienced waterboarding firsthand, and recounted the ordeal for the Huffington Post (and on CurrentTV) in a piece titled: "A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded"

Comments

[Ranta]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808

watch the video , then read his article.

[Bulbul]

Are you sure you gor the right picture ? Certainly he is having a drinking binge

[mergina]

I would place my money on the drinking binge.

[sharonh]

Congratulations to this administration on achieving something so hideous and yet benign-appearing. Cudos to Chairman Mao, while we're at it.

[CGrace]

Hitchens is such a pompous, arrogant ass. Can't stand to listen to him. He believes he knows everything and everyone else is stupid and wrong.

[jhalvers]

Have you considered the possibility that he may be right about that?

[WRPrintz]

Yes...I agree....b­ut I also agree with him about waterboarding.

Even a stop'd clock is right twice a day.

[Hirnlego]

Actually he has said one some interviews similar to "I simply do not know enough".

[tbone99]

If anyone deserves it , it's him.

A million Iraqis thank you for the war, Chris. Nice of you to join them in the water.

[Bluedog12]

Now does he believe in God?

[gala1]

not as much as a whiskey chaser....­........


gala1

[Frank Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

I have some doubts about the rack and the thumbscrew. The brave and colorful Mr. Hitchens would do the nation a comparable service if he could establish, once and for all, the legitimacy under domestic and international law of those hallowed old interrogation techniques. Where would we be without the intrepid geniuses of the right wing media?

[MissKaren]

The Inquisitors of the 15th and 16th centuries would be proud of us, wouldn't they?

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

No one expected the American Inquisition.

[StillAmused]

When the invasion-c­heerleadin­g sot decides to sit on an IED (just to see how it really feels), be sure to let us know.

[imsosure]

Hitchens ought to take a long walk off a short pier as his writing is the real torture.

[DAVESEAN]

SEAN HANNITY AND BILL O'REILLY SHOULD BE WATER BOARDED

[Marshall Lucky]

They probably told Hitchens they were going to pour whiskey down his gullet and when it turned out to be only water, he flipped.

What a bozo! Six years later, he realizes that water torture is torture. No Sherlock!

[gloriar8]

Other than the guy in the hood, he looks like he's just being tossed out of the bar. Bet he's confused as to which event is occuring.

[erathwomen]

I appreciate this article. Christopher Hitchens has finally allowed himself to see the other side of something and lo and behold....­he finds that we liberals do have something to scream about. It's a powerful article.

[Indubio]

Hitchens is the guy everyone loves to hate probably because he is so outspoken with respect to what he believes. He roasted religion as well or better than anyone and took all sorts of grief for it. He supported the Iraq war in the beginning and took flake for that. What I've always enjoyed about Hitches has been his articulation. Like him or hate him the guy is one of the few true intellectuals we have left. If I could write prose English half as well as Hitchens does I'd call myself a writer. Reading him makes me fell like a kibitzer and I spend 4 to 6 hours a day writing.

[Ladyrantsalot]

I don't really see him as an intellectual. He's similar to the neocons in the sense that he started out in the Trotskyist tradition and made this huge leap to the neocolonial right. With all of these people, they think in absolutes, extremes, black and white, and they believe absolutely in their own moral perfection--it pretty much explains the unbridled disdain they have for people who disagree with their extreme ideas. The difference, of course, is that he has no power and, therefore, is rather harmless. I do think he has finally found a way to dissociate himself from his new friends: "Er, I believed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and still believe that anyone who opposed us doesn't understand terrorism, but I am now, finally, against torture."

[Johnagain]

Hitchens lasted 17 seconds, knowing that his captors would not kill him. Imagine what goes through the mind of an 'enemy combatant' who has no idea where the torture will lead.

The fact that Americans are even discussing the pros and cons of torture as a tool used by the government proves that we have sunk to an all-time low as a nation. Thanks to all you dumb@sses who voted for President sh*tstain.

[mistlesuede]

Your point in your second paragraph is spot on. I think this all-time low is going to be next to impossible to climb out of. Things will never be the same.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

The shock of water must of frecked Christopher out, if it was Scotch boarding he would have lasted 19 seconds, mybe 21.