I don't often get too serious on this blog, it's aimed at being a bit of fun, a bit informative, football news during Euro 2008, that sort of thing, but sometimes you just have to make a comment.
While I can't always agree with what Christopher Hitchens says, he is an opponent of the war in Iraq. He has always believed, however, that the US forces don't stoop to torture, but use "extreme interrogation". His critics thus argued that he thought waterboarding, which the US military are known to use, and which GW Bush has denied is torture, falls under extreme interrogation, and the editor of Vanity Fair challenged Hitchens to try waterboarding, to see if it felt like torture. Amazingly Hitchens agreed, and published an article in this month's Vanity Fair.
What gives this article, and Hitchens, some kudos in my eyes, though, is that he actually submits himself to waterboarding. I am not sure that I would do the same. No let me rephrase that, there is no way I would do the same. They produced a video of his experience, which is presented below. Please don't watch this if you are sensitive..
He compares arguments for and against whether the US should be using the technique, and compares waterboarding to foreplay, stating that 'a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is ...unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time.' His position is simply that because a group like Al Queda would use waterboarding against their enemies is reason enough for the US to use it as well. Is that an argument in favour, I'm not sure that it is. He reports that after his experience, he has 'woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia.'
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