July 2, 2008 11:30 AM

Just in case the news that American torturers have been revealed to have taken their cues from that model of moral clarity that was the Chinese Communist regime hasn't fully convinced you that the practice is unquestionably, incontrovertibly evil, Christopher Hitchens' column in the August 2008 Vanity Fair, "Believe Me, It's Torture," ought to drive it home. That is, if the accompanying video, available online at Vanity Fair's website, doesn't do it first.

In the video, Christopher Hitchens is brought, hooded and bound, into an austere looking storage room, and placed on a board, slightly elevated at it's foot. He is instructed by the similarly masked interrogators on how to call a halt to the procedure, either through a safe word - "red" - or by releasing the "dead man's handle" - a metal object placed in each hand. A towel is placed over his face and one of the interrogators begins pouring water on Hitchens' face from an ordinary-looking milk carton. The interrogators demonstrate no more aggression that one might when watering a houseplant. In fact, the process looks so unremarkable that you begin to wonder if they aren't simply "warming Hitchens up" for something worse.

Seventeen seconds pass, and then Hitchens drops the dead man's handle. When the hood is removed, it is jarring to see how panic-stricken Hitchens looks.

In the video, Hitchens describes the experience:

They told me that when I activated the 'dead man's handle' - which is a simple process, you simply release something, let it go - I didn't do that. I practically, even though my hands were bound, I...as near as I could...I threw the thing out of my hand. I mean, I really wanted it to stop.

I could swear I shouted the code word, but I hadn't.

Everything completely goes on you when you're breathing water. You can't think about anything else.

It would be bad enough if you did have something. Suppose if they wanted to know where a relative of yours was...or a lover. You feel, "Well, I'm going to betray them now. Because this has to come to an end. I can't take this anymore." But what if you didn't have anything? What if you'd got the wrong guy? Then you would be in danger of losing your mind very quickly.

That last paragraph, I believe, is critical, especially considering the torture practices of the Chinese Communists - who we are now emulating - were designed to elicit false confessions from those who were tortured.

Attention should be paid to the aftermath of the experience as well, which Hitchens relates thusly:

As a result of this very brief experience, if I do anything that gets my heart rate up, and I'm breathing hard, panting, I have a slight panic sensation that I'm not going to be able to catch my breath again...lately I've been having this feeling of waking up feeling smothered, trying to push everything off my face.

It takes only seventeen seconds to ruin the life of an innocent man.

Well, well well. All in all, one must give Hitchens his due-- he didn't have to get his ass waterboarded. I suspect his goal was to write a column pooh-poohing those who've said all along that waterboarding is torture and thus useless for gaining real information and, in and of itself, an action that is below the dignity of any civilized person or nation. But, I guess not.

Now, if Hitchens was remotely civilized to begin with, or had as much sense as God gave a turnip, he would have figured this out without having to undergo the actual torture. I mean, I know a lot of two year olds that never had to put their hand on a burner in order to figure out that doing so is a bad idea. But then, it is Hitchens we're talking about.

Now, I'm waiting for the stupid son of a bitch to tan his skin, put on Arab garb and try to live in Sadr City for, say 30 days. That ought to cure him of his insipid warmongering.

What do you say, Chris? You might save that moth eaten soul of yours yet.

"Now, I'm waiting for the stupid son of a bitch to tan his skin, put on Arab garb and try to live in Sadr City for, say 30 days. That ought to cure him of his insipid warmongering."

You've completely missed the mark here. More likely than "curing" him of his "warmongering" (you guys need some new words), the experience would likely confirm that fighting to make Sadr City a better place is a noble cause.

Thanks for linking the waterboarding article, though. It's a good one.

Don't try to reason with the Doodoo man, GHWI... of all the prodigious asses on this forum who sulk, jeer, and spray at Hitchens in blundering, impotent rage, this guy takes the cake!

You've completely missed the mark here. More likely than "curing" him of his "warmongering" (you guys need some new words), the experience would likely confirm that fighting to make Sadr City a better place is a noble cause.

Indeed. After all, there are at least 20 million Iraqi's we haven't killed or driven out of Iraq yet. What's the hurry?