Outsourcing My Waterboarding.

The majority of tonight's post is in fact authored by my good friend Scott Arakawa. The final paragraph will be my humble afterword.

On Waterboarding:

Now, this is not a wholesome activity one does on the family's annual lake outing. I heard about waterboarding here and there over the past year, but only decided to give it a thorough googling today. Apparently, it's all the rage in the CIA, who are licensed to use it, and many branches of the military, who aren't. I had a basic idea of what it was and thought it did sound like torture, but finally seeing it sure was a nasty sight. Although, I have to admit, I did enjoy watching the Fox News Correspondent getting nearly drowned. His response to the torture was interesting. He seemed to admire it more than condemn it. He respected, to paraphrase, how quickly one could rebound from a complete breakout to normalcy in such a short amount of time, in awe about how clever we are for using it. Granted, it is a brilliant technique, in that it can be controlled very precisely and does not put the suspect in too great of danger (when administered properly). However, undergoing the process, for not more than five seconds, and going on and on about how "great" it is seems irresponsible. There was no debate or even an exchange of ideas over how ethical/effective this form of interrogation is. The piece was only a story about how the reporter got waterborded. It seemed to serve only to prove the method's effectiveness.

The Wikipedia article is a pretty grim read. Our approved method seems tame compared to the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis, Soviets, and Imperial Japan. In addition to the gag reflex going off, the feeling of dying and drowning, there are beatings, sometimes to engorged stomachs due to the amount of water forced into the victim. And some of the photos on Google image search are pretty rough as well.

Despite having seen these mounds of horrific images and descriptions, I flirted with the idea of trying it on myself. I also quickly abandoned the idea upon learning, not only, that CIA agents can only take up to 14 seconds of the stuff, but the most hardened terrorist holds a record of sorts by lasting no more than two minutes before begging to confess. Some experts believe nothing came of those confessions, but still, getting a man to say, "do it to Julia!" in under five minutes is pretty impressive.

I think the first few drops would do it for me. The rag wouldn't even have to be more than damp. Now I really feel guilty about using this method to get my little brother to do my laundry.

As a note: I drew a quick ms paint sketch of what waterboarding looks like, to lighten the mood and to illustrate the process.

At the time of posting, I am consumed with anger and cynicism from a number of sources. This puts me over the top. How can anyone ever think that such horrible actions are ever justified? I no longer have any faith in America, and my faith in humanity is meager, and nearly eroded.