Waterboarding: The Video

Kaj Larsen gets waterboarded on video by former SERE instructors for the edification of the American public. Via Garance Franke-Ruta.

Comments

Prediction: This video will change the minds of exactly nobody. To see the guy laughing about it afterward destroys the intended effect.

Knowing that the procedure is only staged and can be called off at any time MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. Try being trapped in a hole of the enemy, where the interrogators appear ready and willing to kill you, and you don't know when it will be over, and then get back to me.

Terorrists are by and large taught to believe the worst of Americans. That's going to ratchet up the pyschological trauma considerably. I don't make that point because I'm concerned about the terrorists' pscyhological health. It's a matter of getting good intel, and you're probably not going to get it from someone who's terrified to the point of saying anything to make the agony stop. Or am I missing something.

Posted by Bill | October 31, 2007 10:17 AM

I think I agree Bill. Plus, why did they put Dershowitz up there? Christ, that man was begging for more torture, it's just "an empirical fact" that democracies will torture at the drop of a hat, he tells us, then, bam he goes straight to the ticking time (nuclear) bomb scenario (which has happened exactly how many times again? Torture would make a suicide bomber or an eager martyr reveal his plans how again?). But I guess Dershowitz is a liberal and not a nutty neocon because he wants the president to sign an order. Yup, that improves things a lot.

Posted by d | October 31, 2007 10:46 AM

Also, supposing the powers that be decide waterboarding isn't torture and is therefore legal. What's to stop a couple interrogators using any substance that doesn't, shall we say, meet the minimum standards of potability? *Now* is it torture?

Posted by Bill | October 31, 2007 11:20 AM

Torture can bring a man to answer. It can bring a man to sign something. It can't prompt a man to tell the truth.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 31, 2007 2:05 PM