Reply #7: "Real" waterboarding is exactly the same thing [View All]

[Dogmudgeon]

Waterboarding isn't just a matter of putting wet rags up to the mouth and nose of the victim; the rags are manipulated to alternately allow and stop the victim from breathing. And it isn't just a matter of filling the sinuses, mouth, and upper respiratory tract, either. Divers experience that kind of thing from time to time, and while it's unpleasat, it isn't usually terrifying.

The waterboarding victim has NO control over what happens and when, and that's the point of it -- total loss of control in a potentially lethal situation. In effect, both the victim's breathing reflexes AND their (cortical) sense of control are turned against them.

His earlier tries were improperly done; but the Saran Wrap was foolproof, and he was the fool. The very fact that this was SELF-waterboarding makes it all the more dramatic; he lost control for a few seconds, and it scared the hell out of him.

"SELF-waterboarding" ... it's sort of like masturbation. He got a little of the physical thrill; it wasn't the "Real Thing". Zubaydah and KSM get the full measure of "courtship-by-terror". George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld, (ab)using our spy apparatus, turned two of the potentially most atrocious criminals in history into objects of sympathy AND threw away the ability to ever develop legally acceptable evidence.

--d!