christopher hitchens is waterboarded

[danschank]

at the risk of spreading around the bad cheer, i'm cross-posting a video i found on atthesametime's journal of christopher hitchens being (voluntarily) waterboarded.

* the video is HERE.

* hitchens' article about the experience is HERE.

obviously, this is disturbing stuff, so consider yourself warned

Comments

[4abudabit]

Am I bad person if I had a grin throughout the whole video? Kind of disappointed in him that he didn't last longer. In his defense, if it were about bravado, he probably would have made sure to last longer.

[danschank]

um, hello...

i'll simply say that i have no love for hitchens. i read him from time to time, because i think he is a better writer than most people i disagree with. i'm glad to see a public figure document something like this as openly as he has, and i could care less either way about his personal ability to endure pain.

obviously the dude is opening himself for all sorts of jokes at his expense, but isn't that part of the problem? i guess some things cut a bit deeper than someone's individual celebrity.

[4abudabit]

I don't personally mind Hitchens, I like that he is an ass and gets on people's nerves. I just don't understand the shockingness of the video, I guess. This isn't a political thing, I don't even think we should have a military so this isn't some defense of waterboarding.

It just doesn't that extreme, for something that gets called torture. I've seen much worse on jackass, and they always end thier segments laughing.

As far as me enjoying the video, well I guess that goes back to Jackass. Although I still can't sit through 2 girls 1 cup.

[commandercranky]

I thought I had the stomach to check it out, but I don't. I watched it and (as I mentioned on atthesametime's journal) was reduced to a total mess. Now I feel jittery and anxious and my stomach hurts. Ugh. If only real examples were part of the debate - so much of the conversation about torture has been in the abstract.

[danschank]

sorry to remind you of all this once again. though, if its any consolation, your anxiousness and stomach pains are probably proof that you've chosen the right profession? keep fighting the good fight, commander...

[shady_lamarr]

Christopher Hitchens is also the guy who wrote a book bashing Mother Teresa, for what's that worth. (Which is not to say Henry Kissinger ISN'T a war criminal, just that his book really shouldn't be enshrined as Evidence A.)

I guess I would have been more disturbed had I not JUST finished, meaning finished hours ago, "Five Years of My Life," the memoir of an innocent German Turk who was held at Guatanamo, which was about at as harrowing account of human suffering as you can get, so I guess seeing such a deserving, war-promoting shit getting waterboarded for a whole, what, minute, wasn't really too disturbing.

Now I'm just waiting for a blogger to edit that footage into scenes from "Videodrome." Comedy GOLDmine.

[danschank]

didn't mean to imply that i condone hitch on any level in the above. just wanted to map out his weird trajectory, less this be confused with some left-wing stunt to bash the bush administration (much as i would support one of those as well

[shady_lamarr]

What I did like was when he dismisses the idea that it "simulates drowning," and flatly declares that it is drowning. My main thing is, I don't know, It disturbs me that the debate is whether waterboarding consists of torture in the grand scheme of the mammoth scale of abuse that is going on, is a little like arguing about what size stick it is okay to beat a child to death with for it to be okay.

I've gotta be honest I'm still reeling from that firsthand account of Guantanamo so I'm probably not thinking or writing with a clear-head about any of these topics, my purest non-guarded response would probably consist of a nonstop Yoko Ono like scream of inept rage and a series of "Permanent Midnight" style smashes against a plate glass window, and, fuck, I've gotta get to work tomorrow morning.

[foxinthesnow]

when i first read the piece (i have no stomach for the video, so i skipped out on it), i felt almost impressed that someone who seems to love life in the post 9-11 world as much as he does would be willing to go through something like that and actually speak out about how terrible it is.

and then i remembered just the kind of person he is. any attention is good attention, right hitch?

i really don't see what the point in doing something like that to yourself is. it will be discussed and read among people who already think it's an outrageous and tortuous act, and ignored by everyone else.

[danschank]

it will be discussed and read among people who already think it's an outrageous and tortuous act, and ignored by everyone else.

if the hitchens of ten years back had done this and published it in the nation, i'd be inclined to agree with you. but this comes from a quasi-bush-supporter, and ended up in an issue of vanity fair with (i believe) the cast of gossip girl on the cover. i agree that hitch is vying for attention; i even said so in the above. but there's something programatic about the whole thing (save that awful new-age soundtrack at the beginning... wtf?)-- the process isn't dressed up in any way-- that makes the argument against these practices more visceral and urgent. and with mc cain reversing many of his own objections to these policies, i think the argument against torture needs all the help it can get right now.

i would agree 100% with what you're saying if it was anyone but him.

[foxinthesnow]

i think the fact that it's hitchens doesn't really help anything. his past is so complicated and even though he's become a citizen, he's still a brit and easy to dismiss as leftist sycophant by people who don't know any better, even though he couldn't be further from being one. the fact that he doesn't really talk about why he chose to do this in the first place only complicates the situation.

the comments section of boing boing (where i first read about the article) covers some pretty interesting viewpoints on his article.

i don't think i've ever read the BB comments before, actually

[danschank]

anyway, this one (from boingboing threads) struck me as a good way of putting it (though i would hardly applaud hitchens for being an "empiricist" in general, but whatever):

The reason why I respect Hitchens, even though I disagree with a number of his positions (most notably about the war in Iraq) and find his personanlity abrasive, is that he's an empiricist and, presented with direct evidence to contradict his views, is not so full of himself to not admit his error. It's unfortunate that it required that first-hand knowledge for him to understand others' distress, but better those extremes than not at all.

also, the more i read the responses here, the more i'm inclined to agree that people who recognize hitchens will dismiss him, to an extent. still, people will undoubtedly read this in the waiting room at the doctor's office (or whatever) and not care who hitchens is otherwise. to that end, i'm glad he did this.

[chocolatebark]

I'm not watching it, but only because I already know Waterboarding is bad and don't need Hitchens to tell me.

[danschank]

i'm not sure it's necessary to watch, but i agree with commandercranky:

If only real examples were part of the debate - so much of the conversation about torture has been in the abstract.

now you can, like, youtube a "real example."

[chocolatebark]

Duly noted. Here's hoping I don't have to. Oh Hitchens, you've done it again.