Scylla, I’m certainly glad you’re ok, and this is absolutely fascinating. I’m curious - if this had been an actual interrogation, do you think you would you have talked? It seems most people take it as gospel that torture doesn’t work…would it have worked on you? Especially if the, say, the threat was that if you gave false information they would do it to you again?
Actually, plenty of people think it works. The SDMB isn’t representative of the country. And even here the usual argument is that any information given is likely to be false. Especially if the victim doesn’t have any information that the torturer will accept as true. Threatening to torture the victim if the information is false won’t work because they know that you’ll torture them if the information is true but they don’t like it, or if you have no information. Not to mention that someone under such conditions is likely to just blurt out whatever they think will stop you.
And why would they trust a torturer not to torture them if they tell the truth anyway ?
Very interesting Op. I am glad to hear you are Ok.
I already believed waterboarding is torture, I tended to trust McCain’s judgment on this embarrassment to the USA. The day Cheney argued to retain the use of this technique, lecturing McCain about it, was the day, I put Cheney in the category of Evil approaching Hitler & Stalin. He has no redeemable features and is letting the US suffer for his and his cronies enrichment.
Sorry for the side-rant.
Scylla, this was quite a trial. Why did you decide to do this to yourself? It seems rather extreme.
What is your opinion on our continued use of this torture? I have always believed America was suppose to take the high ground, and that this and several other acts committed since 9-11 have been indefensible in the World’s eyes.
Jim
Wow, Scylla, I am not sure what to say…A pretty nutty thing to do but I really do appreciate your firsthand account and am glad you survived to give it to us!
I have to admit that your account helps put to rest some “cognitive dissonance” I sort of had on this. On the one hand, I intellectually believed those who said that it was really horrible and definitely torture…and I was deadset against the U.S. using it. On the other hand, on a gut level I sort of wondered how it could truly be so terrible to have water poured over your head if you weren’t really in any danger (among other things, I think I was quite ignorant of how it actually worked). Your account put to rest my naivety about it…and helped me to really understand how horrible it is.
[aside] Has this thread made some external blog or website or something? The views:posts ratio is roughly 200:1, whereas most threads get about 10:1 or 20:1. [/aside]
When I was a kid I almost drowned. It is the single most terrifying thing I can remember ever happening to me, and I fully understand scylla’s meaning when he says panic…At a certain point your ability to rationalize goes out the window and then you “freak right out” I cannot imagine however, such an adverse reaction in a “controlled” environment, because deep down you know its going to end. The fact that you were aware that you were in control and were still unable to maintain a calm demeanor is a testament to how terrible water boarding is and I applaud your , um, “dedication” to proving people wrong(right?) Unfortunately however I am certain that politicians would dismiss your learned opinion as the “rantings” of a lunatic, using the fact that you were willing to test it on yourself as proof that you are not someone to be taken seriously. In my opinion this whole argument is one of semantics, trying to decide at what point infliction of pain and duress becomes inhumane. It is saddening to me that after thousands of years of existence it still comes down to “tell me or I’ll smash you good” which is of course oversimplified but true nonetheless.
Yeah, someone mentioned earlier that it hit http://reddit.com, a digg-like site where members vote up or down news items. It’s rather libertarian/liberal focused, so this is just the type of post that would make it to the front page (I frequent reddit, though find the politics and one-sidedness bothersome often).
What I’m getting from Scylla is how damn effective waterboarding is. I can see it would be difficult for the CIA to give up such an easy coercive technique.
$100,000 dollars says you’re full of shit. Seriously, why do you Liberal Scumbags:
1.) Try to manipulate your message in order to “trick” people to keep reading. (commenting about Liberal this Liberal that in the first few paragraphs)
2.) Why do I only subscribe to Conservative Links on Stumble, and You psycho liberal nuts on the internet flood STUMBLE upon with this trash.
3.) IF you actually did this, you wouldn’t have thought to take pictures, video, anything?
IMO you’re spent the better time of your night coming up with this fairy tale. The news acts as if we do water boarding to 70 year old men with children and have nothing to do with the situation at hand. BULL SHIT. Stop filling the internet with LIES. (btw, how are those 100 mile runs OP?) These people that are water-boarded 90% of the time are terrorist caught in the act of war crimes, NOT random citizens. The whole rant about torture is simply a political stunt, and I could write a 10 page paper about it if I cared to, but I 'll end my post here.
Since you’re a guest you clearly don’t realize that Scylla is an arch-conservative with a history of defending every last move the Bush Administration has ever made. I’m 100% certain he never expected the experience to be particularly horrible, and undertook the experiment in order to tell a story about how waterboarding t’ain’t nothin.
In short, your post is pretty much entirely ignorant. I realize that as a guest you aren’t able to search for past threads to verify this, but you can take my word for it.
None of this is to say that the OP isn’t full of shit. I have no way of knowing, except that given my knowledge of Scylla’s past posting history I tend to believe it.
Yea… Attack me instead of attacking the issue at hand.
Typical.
PS if that guy’s a conservative, I must be a fascist.
If the glove fits.
bdaswat
???
ALso, anyone that defends the Bush ad 100% clearly isn’t a true conservative. Now who’s ignorant.
I’d say the guy who won’t admit his first post made a bad assumption.
Actually you attacked the Op and called him a “Liberal Scumbag”. So, crying foul now is a pretty sad comment on you and your maturity level.
**Scylla ** is sufficiently right wing, that when I saw the thread title, I fully expected a lame defense of the torture technique known as water boarding. **Scylla ** really surprised me with his post. This was very unexpected from the source. This board leans liberal, but it has some very intelligent right wingers, republicans and even libertarians of different stripes.
Your charges against the op are out of context and without knowledge of a long term poster.
Jim
Identify yourself publicly, put up $10,000 (a mere 10% of your asserted prize), and I will submit to being waterboarded for your aggrandizement. Having been through several days of simulated torture at SERE School, I have an idea of what to expect, so I think that I can handle the aftermath.
How about it, chum?
Oh good lord. :rolleyes:
Obviously I erred in saying that Scylla always defends Bush. Here:
Doesn’t change the fact that he’s conservative, and anyone who had read any of his posts beyond “Terror of the Blimps” would know this.
Revenant’s rule of debate #1;
If the person debating elects to Capatalise Particular Words that might not be Capatalised Otherwise, it is a clue that they feel disturbingly strongly about the subject. If this is accompanied by its good friends RANDOM CAPS and mysteriously absent punctuation, then double points!
Anyway, i’m afraid i’m at a loss in understanding bdaswat’s point. If he thinks Scylla is lying, then presumably he thinks waterboarding is not effective torture, and thus not helpfulfor those 90% terrorists caught in war crimes. “What nonsense you speak! This is clearly a lie; our methods of torture are weak and pathetic, dammit!”
I’m ashamed to say my first thought was that Scylla might in fact be making it up, in order to prove a point about anecdotal evidence supporting one’s views being accepted whilst contrary anecdotal evidence is discarded. But then i’m a suspicious bastard.
What is wrong with you people? This just proves your libs that flood the internet with Liberal propaganda are truly cave dwellers truly disconnected with the outside world. Clearly my statement about $100,000 was a figure of speech, not a real offer firstly.
Again “What Exit” why don’t you respond to anything I said instead of commenting on my “level of maturity” (see that’s another typical liberal tactic, discredit me so you don’t have to respond to the truth)
Saying that I need to “know” the OP and have a relationship or whatever to “understand and comment” on the issue is absurd. I don’t need to know anything about the guy to comment on the believability of his story.
Water boarding is simply the “bandwagon” story of the year. If you are en enemy of this country and have information that could potentially save the lives of the TRULY innocent (even if it’s 1 person), I don’t care what they do to the guy.