Since Hitch's waterboarding stunt has drawn such a tsunami of attention from almost every corner of the chatosphere, why not bring together a few disparate waves and see how much of a splash they make, I thought to myself. So here goes.
It is admirable that Hitchens has apparently changed his mind after previously appearing to categorise the practice as "extreme interrogation", although even in the article he says he does "not trust anybody" who does not understand the viewpoint that "when contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay".
But why did Hitchens have to be subjected to waterboarding before accepting it was torture? Critics of the practice such as Amnesty International have been drawing attention to the horrific nature of waterboarding for some time. Hitchens, who supported the Iraq war, is notoriously contemptuous of those who criticise the invasion or those whom he suspects of anti-American sentiment.
But even the rightwing Fox News had a journalist see for himself the effects of waterboarding. Steve Harrigan concluded: "As far as torture goes .... at least to me it seemed like a pretty efficient mechanism."
So has Hitchens actually added anything to the debate?
To which the first commenter wrote:
It's added nothing to the debate but it does show what a pratt Hitchens is.
Meanwhile, at the ACLU blog, a clever chap named Brian commented that:
Hitchens claims about waterboarding must be discounted. Why? Because he only made the statements after being tortured, obviously. Since torture only results in bad information, waterboarding could not be torture.
On a more serious note, Les Visible at his Smoking Mirrors blogspot on July 8 asked:
Why did the blackmailed, controlled asset Christopher Hitchens do that waterboarding stunt for Vanity Fair? Given how incredibly out of shape he is, I have to wonder how badly they have him compromised that he would endure that kind of embarrassment. Nearly every senator and congressman in the formerly United States is in the same position… and shape.
The most reasonable answer I can think of to that is that some people will do anything for publicity.
Hitch's verdict? "If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."
Honestly, I thought we learned in grade school to be a little smarter than this -- that it wasn't necessary to stick a metal fork in the electrical socket to know there was electricity there. Unfortunately, for some people personal experience trumps all other forms of learning, and they must learn at the school of hard knocks. Or, in this case, the school of hard torture.
What next? Will we wake up to read this headline in Vanity Fair?
"Hitchens Loses Legs to Munition in Southern Iraq — Author was trying to understand arguments against cluster-bomb treaty."
And lastly, although by absolutely no means leastly, the lively, lovely Media Lizzy has finally taken her old uncle wolf's advice and lost the hots for the Hitch. For all the wrong reasons, of course. Apparently he's become too sympathetic towards the terrorist element. I'm going to quite her at length both because she's been a couteous visitor to this site and because I think that what she says is well worth a read.
A couple of things come to mind. First, being an American man takes more than becoming a naturalized citizen. Second, I find myself quite disappointed in Hitch. Empathy, even sympathy, for the terrorists is hinted at. By the end of the article - it was all too clear that for Hitch, the pendulum has departed and is swinging inevitably Left.
Alas, some things are too good to be true. Hitchens held that place in my political heart that was once occupied by Sting aka Professor Gordon Sumner in the “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” video fantasy about a million years ago. Like so many soft-handed intellectuals, Hitchens predictably finds arguments for either side - talks about moral relativism - and defends his position on waterboarding as “torture.”
I am not here to debate the reasons for or against waterboarding. Or what does or does not constitute “torture.” Clearly the issue has complexities and implications mere mortals have a tough time comprehending. For me, anything that our men at SERE experience should be fair game. And the opinions of men who have never served, or the opinions of men that served only to fulfill a domestic political ambition, lack the credibility inherent in the first-person accounts shared throughout the active-duty ranks among those in non-integrated units, deployed behind enemy lines, who occasionally share the brutal truth of their day-to-day existence.
SERE ain’t for the faint of heart. It ain’t for a man who clings to childhood memories. It ain’t for a man who hasn’t the capacity to disassociate home-fires from hostile-fire. And as a girl, who has washed the sand away… absorbed the emotional crash landing when the debrief is over… I am reminded of the breathtaking sacrifice our Special Forces men make. With every life saved, every terrorist captured, every sleeper cell broken up, every weapons cache destroyed, every target that gets painted, every HVT (high value target) that gets nabbed under the dark of night or light of day- our world is improved with every breath they take. Every move they make. They stand watch so that we don’t have to.
And while Hitchens certainly wrote in earnest, I find myself closing the Hitch chapter and book. Instead, I am pleased to curl back up in the blankets of freedom provided to me every night by the men in unspeakable places, facing unspeakable dangers from an enemy who would never be so kind as to consult the US Army Field manual before taking actions that would by any definition constitute torture with a capital T.
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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