Even the body of Man can be commanded into health.
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Joined: May 2009
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Quote:
Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture
"It is way worse than I thought it would be"
By RYAN POLLYEA
And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show.
Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining.
"I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture.
The debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture reached a fever pitch this week as re-ignited claims that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) knew as early as 2002 about waterboarding techniques being used, and former Vice President Dick Cheney and President Barack Obama gave "dueling speeches" Thursday.
Listeners had the chance to decide whether Mancow himself or his co-host, Chicago radio personality Pat Cassidy, would undergo the interrogation method during the broadcast. The voters ultimately decided Mancow would be the one donning the soaked towel and shackles, and at about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio that was compared to a "dungeon" by Cassidy.
"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."
With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.
Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.
"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."
"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "
Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment -- and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.
"Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," Hitchens concluded in the article.
I wonder exactly what unit of measurement he's using to establish that waterboarding somehow breaches a line that separates torture from interrogation.
I, personally, am not stupid enough to distinguish the two. Waterboarding certainly is torture, but then again so is shining a light in someone's face for a prolonged amount of time, asking repetitious questions in a closed space, messing with the room temperature, having detainees drink a lot of water to put them on the edge of confession, etc.
They're all forms of torture since they involve directly and purposefully coercing people who are being interrogated. They're all just different ranges of torture.
Articles that describe subjective situations like this only serve to ake the issue more ambiguous.
Does NBC now consider Mancow's opinions a valid news source? Or do shock jock's only warrant a full page of coverage when they agree with the Obamassiah?
I think Ann Coulter is a bit out there sometimes but I love this clip. Joy Behar is one of those anti-water boarding nuts. She asks Ann to be water boarded since she supports water boarding, Ann turns the tables on the liberal anti-logic and asks Behar to be aborted since she supports abortion. Behar of course is stunned as she only has liberal catchphrases to spout:
In a similar vein, no normal person wants to be sent to prison. However, we don't ask people who support sending criminals to prison if they, themselves, want to be locked up as if that somehow makes them hypocrites.
Reporters are some of the dumbest people on earth. Back before I retired from the government I used to deal with them all the time. Even if you emailed them something in writing, they'd insert typos or errors in the final version.
