Slog - Comments on Some of You Have Wanted to Do This for a While Now

Comment by w7ngman

w7ngman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:22:15 -0800

I've always wanted to set up a waterboarding station at the Republican National Convention.

Comment by RonK, Seattle

RonK, Seattle — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:29:26 -0800

No waterboarding for me ... reading a Hitchens essay was torture enough.

Comment by infrequent

infrequent — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:32:44 -0800

is that walter sobchak? i'm surprised he chose the carmina burana. he's an enigma.

Comment by Greg

Greg — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:36:32 -0800

This is actually the least painful of all Hitchens' essays I have read.

Comment by Trevor

Trevor — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:37:12 -0800

Does it count if you know you're not going to die?

Comment by Jeff Stevens

Jeff Stevens — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:46:29 -0800

Alexander Cockburn will surely be responsible for at least half the hits on that video.

Comment by D

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:50:29 -0800

Wow, he made it through like half a cup of water being poured on him for 10 seconds.

Comment by brett

brett — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:09:46 -0800

if they used scotch instead of water, we'd be reading an entirely different Hitchens essay right now.

Comment by RHETT ORACLE

RHETT ORACLE — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:40:38 -0800

Well, I guess if you have to disdain or trivialize something that's extremely unlikely to happen to you, then feel free to carry on as if this practice is acceptable under any convention, especially if you dislike the subject's writing. Unbelievable! No wonder we're not surprised that a woman drops dead on a NYC hospital ER floor and is ignored for hours. We haven't been waterboarded, we've been syrup-titiously anesthetized.

Comment by brett

brett — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:48:59 -0800

@9 who the fuck said waterboarding is acceptable? no one did. and now we're all responsible for a NYC ER death? grow a sense of humor.

Comment by catnextdoor

catnextdoor — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:15:22 -0800

I still hate my ex for posting a stranger valentine that said my love for him felt like waterboarding.

Fucker.

Comment by treacle

treacle — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:20:47 -0800

It's a travesty that it's taken so long for someone so well-known to get waterboarded on video and write about it.
For all of Hitchens' faults, I respect him for this.. and for changing his opinion to state that waterboarding is actually torture.

Comment by CP

CP — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:47:05 -0800

Were they trying to get him talk? Or to stop talking?

Heh, that joke is by a friend of mine.

Here's my joke:

Trying to cure a hangover, Hitch?

@5 - it certainly does, to some degree. That's what's irked me abut seeing FOX news douchebags getting waterboarded in the past -- it was a controlled environment, and they knew the people weren't going to kill them, and it would stop when they wanted it to stop. If these folks were kidnapped, slapped around, forced to listen to bad hair metal from loud loudspeakers, etc etc, and then had to do this?

Or, another litmus test: if Patty Hearst rejoined the Symbionese Liberation Army, and they kidnapped a daughter of a president, and waterboarded her, you know... the reaction would not be good.

And it would set back the liberation of Symbonia another generation!

Comment by CP

CP — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:51:40 -0800

Brett @ 8, if they'd used scotch instead of water, it would have been... any other Hitchens column.

Comment by RHETT ORACLE

RHETT ORACLE — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:13:51 -0800

George W. Bush apparently is "the fuck" who said waterboarding is acceptable. And only those who ignored the dying woman are responsible for ignoring her - not distant, detached Seattlites. Sense of humor here OK as the dead woman had been waterboarded because W. thought she was Cindy Sheehan. All OK now?