I have a feeling that Hitchens went into this experiment hoping to reach the conclusion that waterboarding wasn't really that bad. Instead, he ends up making one of the more honest and informed cases against the practice that I've read.
Good to see one of journalism's most provocative commentators throw plug in some high-voltage perspective on U.S. use of waterboarding, a story that's been drained of its shock value through repetition in the media.
3 comments:
...true, if Hitchens wasn't one of the most hypocritical journalists around...from Bush's lapdog, to "bravely" exploring his incredulous torture techniques...
Not sure if I'd call him Bush's lapdog. He's been pretty critical of the way the administration has handled the war. And his hawkishness about it is based on something a little different than the neocons' rationale. Hitchens has long been a champion of the Kurds, who were brutally oppressed by Saddam, and Hitchens' argument for being in Iraq is more akin to an argument for being in Darfur or Rwanda than it is a War on Terror thing (although there are bits of that argument in his writing, too.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jan/20/usa.georgebush
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