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The Book of Lies Trailer
Local Miami author Brad Meltzer's trailer for his latest book, The Book of Lies. Joss Whedon, Christopher Hitchens and Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof pontificate. Local Miami author Brad Meltzer's trailer for his latest book, The Book of Lies. Joss Whedon, Christopher Hitchens and Lost co-cr... more
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Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens Undergoes Waterboarding
Here's the report:
Just in case the revelation that American torturers took 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 the point 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 its 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 impact the life of an innocent man. Here's the report: ... more -
On the Waterboard
On the Waterboard
How does it feel to be “aggressively interrogated”? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of America’s use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo and elsewhere. VF.com has the footage. Related: “Believe Me, It’s Torture,” from the August 2008 issue. On the Waterboard ... more -
Chris Hitchens submits himself to torture
Author and journalist Chris Hitchens had in the past declared that waterboarding, the practice of pouring water into the breathing passageways of a person, might not be classed as torture but as "extreme interrogation" so Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter challenged him to undergo the process. He is now very much convinced it is torture.
The "official lie" about waterboarding, Hitchens says, is that it "simulates the feeling of drowning". In fact, "you are drowning - or rather, being drowned". Author and journalist Chris Hitchens had in the past declared that waterboarding, the practice of pouring water into the breathing pas... more -
Waterboarded: you are being drowned
Vanity Fair magazine describes how the author Christopher Hitchens underwent waterboarding and his own portrayal of the experience. Hitchens stated, "You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning, or, rather, being drowned."
Photographs and two videos (including the video of Christopher Hitchens being waterboarded) are included. Vanity Fair magazine describes how the author Christopher Hitchens underwent waterboarding and his own portrayal of the experience. H... more -
YouTube - Watch Christopher Hitchen Get Waterboarded (VANITY FAIR)
"How does it feel to be "aggressively interrogated"? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of America's use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo and elsewhere. VF.com has the footage." "How does it feel to be "aggressively interrogated"? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal... more
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The lion who didn't roar
Why hasn't Nelson Mandela spoken out against Robert Mugabe?
The scale of state-sponsored crime and terror in Zimbabwe has now escalated to the point where we are compelled to watch not just the systematic demolition of democracy and human rights in that country but something not very far removed from slow-motion mass murder a la Burma. The order from the Mugabe regime that closes down all international aid groups and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations is significant in two ways. It expresses the ambition for total control by the state, and it represents a direct threat—"vote for us or starve"—to the already desperate civilian population. The organization CARE, for example, which reaches half a million impoverished Zimbabweans, has been ordered to suspend operations. And here's a little paragraph, almost buried in a larger report of more comprehensive atrocities but somehow speaking volumes:
The United Nations Children's Fund said Monday that 10,000 children had been displaced by the violence, scores had been beaten and some schools had been taken over by pro-government forces and turned into centers of torture.
While this politicization of the food situation in "his" country was being completed, President Robert Mugabe benefited from two things: the indulgence of the government of South Africa and the lenience of the authorities in Rome, who allowed him to attend a U.N. conference on the world food crisis—of all things—despite a five-year-old ban on his travel to any member of the European Union. This, in turn, seems to me to implicate two of the supposed sources of moral authority on the planet: Nelson Mandela and the Vatican.
By his silence about what is happening in Zimbabwe, Mandela is making himself complicit in the pillage and murder of an entire nation, as well as the strangulation of an important African democracy. I recently had the chance to speak to George Bizos, the heroic South African attorney who was Mandela's lawyer in the bad old days and who more recently has also represented Morgan Tsvangirai, the much-persecuted leader of the Zimbabwean opposition. Why, I asked him, was his old comrade apparently toeing the scandalous line taken by President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress? Bizos gave me one answer that made me wince—that Mandela is now a very old man—and another that made me wince again: that his doctors have advised him to avoid anything stressful. One has a bit more respect for the old lion than to imagine that he doesn't know what's happening in next-door Zimbabwe or to believe that he doesn't understand what a huge difference the smallest word from him would make. It will be something of a tragedy if he ends his career on a note of such squalid compromise.
It is the silence of Mandela, much more than anything else, that bruises the soul. It appears to make a mockery of all the brave talk about international standards for human rights, about the need for internationalist solidarity and the brotherhood of man, and all that. There is perhaps only one person in the world who symbolizes that spirit, and he has chosen to betray it. Or is it possible, before the grisly travesty of the runoff of June 27, that the old lion will summon one last powerful growl? Why hasn't Nelson Mandela spoken out against Robert Mugabe? ... more -
New heated report claims Hillary’s Bosnia lies go much deeper
Christopher Hitchens has given a new scathing account of Hillary's lies about her 1996 trip to Bosnia, going much deeper than just her deceit about the visit. In 1992, Bill Clinton vowed to fight the genocide going on in Bosnia. It never happened. Why? Because Hillary told him that the Bosnia situation would be a distraction from her lobbying efforts for health-care reform.
Photographs and a video are included. Christopher Hitchens has given a new scathing account of Hillary's lies about her 1996 trip to Bosnia, going much deeper than jus... more -
The problem with politics today
...most political discourse is half-baked and cliche.
"Pretty soon, we should be able to get electoral politics down to a basic newspeak that contains perhaps 10 keywords: Dream, Fear, Hope, New, People, We, Change, America, Future, Together.
Fishing exclusively from this tiny and stagnant pool of stock expressions, it ought to be possible to drive all thinking people away from the arena and leave matters in the gnarled but capable hands of the professional wordsmiths and manipulators. In the new jargon, certain intelligible ideas would become inexpressible." ...most political discourse is half-baked and cliche. ... more -
Bah Chanukah! (At least that's what Chris Hitchens thinks...)
Read this and try to have a Happy Chanukah! :-)
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Remembering a Soldier
This is a very touching article by Christopher Hitchens about a 23-year-old soldier, Mark Daily, from Irvine, California who was inspired by Hitchens' articles to enlist in the armed forces. Daily was killed in Iraq by an improvised explosive device. This is a very touching article by Christopher Hitchens about a 23-year-old soldier, Mark Daily, from Irvine, California who was inspi... more
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Christopher Hitchens
