A blogger calling himself “Scylla” has written an interesting recount of self-imposed waterboarding. It’s at a place called “The Straight Dope“.
Scylla has an interesting background, and seems the ideal candidate for waterboarding.
I am incredibly fit and training for a 100 mile endurance run. The main thing about such an event is ability to tolerate pain. I am good at this. I am trained. I also have experience with free-diving from my college days. I once held my breath for 4 minutes and two seconds. Once, while training as a lifeguard I swam laps without breathing until I passed out, so that I could know my limits.
He decided to undertake his experiment in three phases. First, the kindest:
I have an inclined weight bench and a watering can. No problem. I lie on this and tilt the water can to pour water on my mouth and nose. Water goes up my nose causing me to gag and choke and splutter, but after a try or two I’m able to suppress my reflex, relax breathe in shallowly and then expel rapidly (shooting out the water) and maintain my composure. This is not too bad. with my diving experience, you would never break me this way. I can’t believe those AL Zarqawi guys were such pussies.
Second, he put a wet rag in his mouth. It made the procedure a little more difficult, but still he was able to manage. Finally, he got into advanced waterboarding, which I am sure the Americans know about and practice:
The idea is that you wrap saran wrap around the mouth in several layers, and poke a hole in the mouth area, and then waterboard away. I didn’t really see how this was an improvement on the rag technique, and so far I would categorize waterboarding as simply unpleasant rather than torture, but I’ve come this far so I might as well go on.
Here’s what happened:
The water fills the hole in the saran wrap so that there is either water or vacuum in your mouth. The water pours into your sinuses and throat. You struggle to expel water periodically by building enough pressure in your lungs. With the saran wrap though each time I expelled water, I was able to draw in less air. Finally the lungs can no longer expel water and you begin to draw it up into your respiratory tract.
It seems that there is a point that is hardwired in us. When we draw water into our respiratory tract to this point we are no longer in control. All hell breaks loose. Instinct tells us we are dying.
Keep in mind that Scylla was in control of his own experiment.
Is waterboarding torture? Here’s what he found out:
It’s horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I’d prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I’d give up anything, say anything, do anything.
The Spanish Inquisition knew this. It was one of their favorite methods.
It’s torture. No question. Terrible terrible torture. To experience it and understand it and then do it to another human being is to leave the realm of sanity and humanity forever. No question in my mind.
Scylla goes on to say that if he had a choice between waterboarding and having his fingers hit with a sledge hammer, one by one, he’d take the hammer.
Scylla could be anyone, by the way. He could have made the whole thing up. He does use a pseudonym, and there seems no reason for anonymity. It all needs a grain of salt. But he does seem familiar with the procedure, at least.
Americans have always been enamored of torture, and are quick to project our own depravity on others. This isn’t new – the natives who occupied this land were the first to feel the brunt of our righteous anger, and to be castigated as “savages” as we massacred them. But in the years since World War II, we’ve used surrogates to do our dirty work. We’ve trained them at Fort Benning, Georgia. We used “gooks” to kill other gooks in Vietnam, throwing them off helicopters and putting them in tiger cages. At least at My Lai we had the decency just to kill them outright.
What has changed? With 9/11, we now admit to doing torture ourselves. The administration is attempting to legitimize it. Waterboarding is part of the public debate. That was unthinkable on September 10, 2001.
So low have we gone that candidates for the presidency refuse to condemn the procedure.
I long for the days when we only tortured in secret, before Pandora left her box, when the public had a higher sense of moral values than our leaders. Now we’ve joined them.
PS: I got the link to this piece from Counterpunch.
Piece of Mindful 