Christopher Hitchens getting Waterboarded voluntarily
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2. Judge-Jake commented 10 years ago
What a wonderfully civilised world we have evolved into, doesn't it just make you so proud. The cavemen would sit around and be amazed at how far we have come.
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5. sux2bu commented 10 years ago
A quick (paraphrased) history of waterboarding from wiki :
Waterboarding has been documented since at least the Spanish Inquisition.Because of the intense fear it provokes in the victim,it has been a popular torture method ever since. Waterboarding is seen as a better tactic than most other forms of torture because if done correctly, it causes no immediate physical harm. This makes it easier to cover up, and allows it to be used far more often, as the subject does not have to heal between sessions. As there are no physical marks left on the subject, waterboarding can be easily denied after the interrogee's release.
After World War II, the United States tried, convicted, and executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American POWs.It was also used by both sides during the Vietnam War and the British during The Troubles. Much of the American experience is based on these two scenarios. During the Vietnam War, "high risk of capture" personnel (special forces and aviators) were trained to resist waterboarding, among other forms of torture, at the hands of potential captors. The British refined the technique during The Troubles, a period of unofficial armed conflict with the IRA. The British wanted a way to extract information from captured IRA operatives, without giving the IRA a rallying cry.
Waterboarding has been documented since at least the Spanish Inquisition.Because of the intense fear it provokes in the victim,it has been a popular torture method ever since. Waterboarding is seen as a better tactic than most other forms of torture because if done correctly, it causes no immediate physical harm. This makes it easier to cover up, and allows it to be used far more often, as the subject does not have to heal between sessions. As there are no physical marks left on the subject, waterboarding can be easily denied after the interrogee's release.
After World War II, the United States tried, convicted, and executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American POWs.It was also used by both sides during the Vietnam War and the British during The Troubles. Much of the American experience is based on these two scenarios. During the Vietnam War, "high risk of capture" personnel (special forces and aviators) were trained to resist waterboarding, among other forms of torture, at the hands of potential captors. The British refined the technique during The Troubles, a period of unofficial armed conflict with the IRA. The British wanted a way to extract information from captured IRA operatives, without giving the IRA a rallying cry.
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6. Gringo_el_Diablo commented 10 years ago
I GOT NEXT! >8E
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7. BloodBeast commented 10 years ago
With this, Guantanamo, and various other neo-con initiatives, America lost the right to call itself "the land of the free and the brave", and reduced itself to the level of the most barbarous societies on the planet.
Shameful, disgusting, disgraceful.
Despite the clear knowledge that torture victims will spout any nonsense that the torturer wants to hear, thereby proving torture to be not only ineffective but counter-productive, still wicked people continue to use it. The civilised world should not.
Shameful, disgusting, disgraceful.
Despite the clear knowledge that torture victims will spout any nonsense that the torturer wants to hear, thereby proving torture to be not only ineffective but counter-productive, still wicked people continue to use it. The civilised world should not.
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8. Thanos commented 10 years ago
I really love how we, as a society, made it through the dark ages. The dark times when the likes of Spanish Inquisition and various other "confession seekers" were known to had used variety of tools to make common people confess to the act of witchcraft... or to anything else they desired them to confess. And how we finally broke free of these idiotic notions and recognised, not only that the torture for potential information (or confession) is unethical, but also that it is fundamentally flawed; that the guilty are likely to be somewhat prepared for the possibility and offer false information, while the innocent break easily and offer utter nonsense, both of which is finally labeled as a "confession". Splendid!
+13 1. kirkelicious commented 10 years ago