A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded

As a journalist for Current TV, a former military officer, and a student of public policy I have been involved in the debate about the War on Terror from the frontlines in Afghanistan to the policy discussions of academia. In the spring of 2006 a battle was brewing between the Bush Administration and some influential members of Congress over the use coercive interrogation techniques. The conflict over what techniques were legally and morally permissible had been a subtext of the War on Terror for years, but for the most part the debate was occurring inside of the intelligence community, the human rights community, and in small legal circles. It was outside the purview of the American public.

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By April of 2006 the debate about coercive interrogation and its most controversial technique, water-boarding, had started to spill into the headlines. I was in graduate school at the time. As I watched the debate unfold, and listened to both pundits and policymakers give their opinion on whether this technique constituted torture, I was struck by the strangeness of the debate. All of these people were lobbying opinions about a subject they had never seen or witnessed, and that struck me as problematic in a healthy democracy. See, in full disclosure I had a unique knowledge of water-boarding. I had the technique performed on me during my time in the service as part of my SERE training (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). I, like all Special Forces operatives who deploy overseas, was sent to a training camp where we learned to resist interrogation and survive captivity, god forbid that ever happened to us overseas. Ironically, one of the many techniques we learned during this training was to assert our rights as told under Article III of the Geneva Convention. So, because I was familiar with water-boarding, I was intrigued by this national conversation that was going on about this thing that few people really understood. But, like many Americans, the pre-occupations of everyday life, for me the pressure of mid-terms and exams, pushed the controversy to the back of my mind.

Then, in mid March I traveled to Cambodia for Spring Break. While there I visited the Tuol Sleng (also known as S-21) prison in Phnom Penh. The Tuol Sleng prison had been converted to a museum and memorial for the victims of the Cambodian Genocide under the Pol Pot regime. As I walked through the museum and saw the photographs of the victims of the genocide, I was shocked to see a picture of the Khmer Rouge Water-boarding a Cambodian villager. At that moment I saw a throughline between the debate we were having domestically and the picture I was standing in front of. I was spurred into action, and upon my return to the United States, I decided to have myself water-boarded, this time on national TV, as a public service, so that this controversial technique could be judged in the court of public opinion.

Kaj Larsen's water-boarding video airs Wednesday at 7pm PST/10PM EST in a one hour special report on Current TV.

Comments

[MoeJava]

ANYONE saying it's not torture should be subjected to it - live on TV. Make it a pay-per-view event. Perhaps all the presidential candidates, except Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and John McCain, who have spoken out against it's use, would volunteer to show us how it affects them.
If they dont deem this torture, then let them walk the walk instead of merely talking the talk.

[jpshotwheels]

Do you realize 7 years ago this discussion wouldn't even be a discussion, that is the real problem. Bush and Co. have brought us to a very low point of having an argument over what is and what isn't torture.

[olivia]

We are barbarians.

[soylentgreenleftovers]

Kaj, what is a former SEAL doing in Ivy league grad school? Go East, young man, there's $$ to be made with Blackwater...

[Tinuviel]

I would like to know how we can be debating an action that we tried Japanese officers for conducting in WWII? If we considered it torture in 1945 and were willing to accuse the soldiers of Japan with War Crimes for conducting waterboarding on American POW's.....how can it be ok now? Because we are scared? What a nation of spineless wimps we have become.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Congrats Mr. Larson, your gag reflex is alive and well.

BUT YOU KNEW THEY WERE GOING TO LET YOU UP !!!

You want to do a real test? Let some Abu Ghraib or Gitmo resident be at the helm.

If done by an enemy, it's torture.

But if you would like to waterboard el Busho and Darth Cheney, by all means...

[vietveter]

As an American I appreciate your attempt at educating the public about this issue. A more appropriate subject for the demonstration would be the decider in chief. He could then have for once an informed opinion.

[alkamm]

The United States is in a state of denial with regard to our own constitution and international law. We used to stand against torture here and abroad, but now we decide that conditions exist where it might be a good thing even though most interrogators say they get better information without it.
For a while, we abandoned the death penalty and the retrograde countries that still practice it. We were better for that abandonment. Not even present day Russia sanctions the death penalty, so we find ourselves standing with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in its support.
Most people would agree that some people deserve to be tortured and some of the same people might deserve the death penalty, but we also realize that these practices demean us and are not instruments of justice, but vengeance. We also realize that courts can't decide how to properly supervise custody rights of children let alone figure out with precision who needs to be put to death or tortured.
We have become a sloppy, morally challenged society when we could be so much better. Let's do what we can to rise above our baser instincts and regain the respect of a world that wants to love rather than hate us. Many countries do not hate us for our liberties. They hate us for the liberties we take with proper government and the rule of law.

[HuffyPussy]

Mr. Larson, I find your comments less helpful than those of Malcolm Nance, a veteran of counter-terrorism operations in Iraq, and a former Navy SEALS instructor. Nance clarifies that waterboarding is not "simulated" drowning it is actually "CONTROLLED DROWNING" or "CONTROLLED DEATH".

Nance has written a post for Small Wars Journal explaining what waterboarding is.

To quote:

1. "Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period."

2. "Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning.. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water...The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result.. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again.

Many waterboard team members, even in training, enjoy the sadistic power of making the victim suffer and often ask questions as an after thought..."

I wonder if your video demo of your own voluntary waterboarding fully captures the experience as described above by Mr. Nance.

[prolifeprogressive]

This countries tolerance of the lost moral compass is staggering.

All the republicans but Paul are chearleading it and all but Paul and Kucinich have helped implement it at one stage or another.

Thanks for your wider perspective.

[RickO]

That's pretty amazing to watch. The one thing you can't simulate is actually being the captive, being terrified to begin with, not knowing what's really going to happen to you or how far your interrogators are going to take it, especially if you really don't have the information they are trying to beat out of you. People die under torture. And it's a horrible way to spend your last moments on earth. How dare we do that to anyone.

[Maxine]

That's all and good but, I don't have to see it demonstrated or have it done to myself to know that waterboarding is torture. Have Americans regressed so much that we have to have a picture? Geez, man use your brain for something other than a text book.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think they should abolish ALL of that garbage
and make the 'defense' budget three dollars
per year, if need be, to prevent any more of it.

http://www.impeachbush.org

[RedWhiteandBrooklyn]

Be careful, brother: once the right wing chickenhawks hear about this, they're going to start their smear machine up, and the lies about you, your service to our nation and your patriotism will soon be called into question, if not outright derided. As for me, I'm proud of you & the work you're doing. Like a lot of your fellow vets, we are with you in our thoughts & prayers. That a cowardly AWOL like George W. would set this nation on a path of torturing people who have not even been accused of a crime makes him a war criminal.