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Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 9:43 am
by Sionnach Glic
Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture.
It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly -- "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," according to NBC Chicago.
"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South told his audience before he was waterboarded on air. "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."
Mancow was set on a 7-foot long table with his legs elevated and his feet tied.
"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.' "
The upshot? "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow told listeners. "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."
"Absolutely. I mean that's drowning," he added later. "It is the feeling of drowning."
"If I knew it was gonna be this bad, I would not have done it," he said.
The 42-year-old radio host is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, he was maligned for saying that then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was "vile," "bloodthirsty," "evil" and "should be kicked out of America."
Video
Maybe that'll shut up the right-wingers who keep insisting it isn't torture. I have to say, good on the guy for actualy going through with it, and having the decency to admit he was wrong.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:14 am
by Tsukiyumi
I'd like to do it so I can see for myself. This guy changed his tune pretty quick; I'd like to see just how bad it is.
It seems to invoke an involuntary reflex rather than causing any real pain, sort of like certain nerve clusters. Interesting.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:53 am
by Sionnach Glic
The idea behind waterboarding is that it simulates drowning almost perfectly.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 11:05 am
by Tsukiyumi
Rochey wrote:The idea behind waterboarding is that it simulates drowning almost perfectly.
The waterboarding I'd heard of had plastic over your face; I didn't get that from this description. If you're held upside-down and water is poured on your face, you'd
actually drown pretty quick, I imagine.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 11:25 am
by Sionnach Glic
I don't know the specifics of it, but that's how it's supposed to work. As the video shows, it is an excellent replication of drowning.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 1:59 pm
by Graham Kennedy
I've read a quote that "waterboarding isn't a simulation of drowning; it IS drowning." You actually do get water going into your lungs, and if the person doing it to you isn't careful about it you actually can die from drowning during it.
I actually knew a man who was waterboarded a while back. He underwent one session; it took him weeks to get over the trauma.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 2:01 pm
by Sionnach Glic
And that's why it's torture. Now if only we could do it to more of those right-wing shriekers.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 2:05 pm
by Aaron
GrahamKennedy wrote:I've read a quote that "waterboarding isn't a simulation of drowning; it IS drowning." You actually do get water going into your lungs, and if the person doing it to you isn't careful about it you actually can die from drowning during it.
I actually knew a man who was waterboarded a while back. He underwent one session; it took him weeks to get over the trauma.
Yeah, it is drowning, they just stop before they kill you. SERE candidates used to undergo it, not sure if they still do but a bunch said this was a bad idea when the US started it.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 2:16 pm
by Mikey
Tsukiyumi wrote:It seems to invoke an involuntary reflex rather than causing any real pain, sort of like certain nerve clusters. Interesting.
I don't know much about torture, but I think an implied and presented threat of death is probably far more effective torture than application of pain. A person will dissociate from extended application of pain after a while.
And it still boggles my mind that there are people who think that this isn't torture.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 3:08 pm
by Nutso
Tsukiyumi wrote:I'd like to do it so I can see for myself. This guy changed his tune pretty quick; I'd like to see just how bad it is.
I think Mancow had drowned and needed to be revived as a child. So this stuff would be easily traumatic for him.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 6:43 pm
by Tyyr
I loved the comment, "Yeah 14 seconds, if done properly."
I dunno, there's something almost comical about the sort of professional pride in that. That he knows the proper way to do it.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 6:52 pm
by Sionnach Glic
Mikey wrote:And it still boggles my mind that there are people who think that this isn't torture.
There are two types of people who claim that.
1) People who's only ideas of torture is stuff like what the Inquisition did to heretics. As far as they're concerned, if it doesn't cause bleeding then it's not torture. This is mostly born from ignorance, and
can be thought. The guy in the article is an example of these guys.
2) People who are well aware of what it is, but just want to keep on doing it to those damn coloured foreigners. They just blatantly lie about it to justify letting it continue.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 11:02 pm
by Tsukiyumi
Nutso wrote:Tsukiyumi wrote:I'd like to do it so I can see for myself. This guy changed his tune pretty quick; I'd like to see just how bad it is.
I think Mancow had drowned and needed to be revived as a child. So this stuff would be easily traumatic for him.
Yeah, that would do it.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 3:47 pm
by Mikey
I never almost drowned, but I still think that this would be pretty traumatic for me.
Re: Right Wing Radio Host Waterboarded - Admits it's Torture
Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 1:35 pm
by Atekimogus
Rochey wrote:And that's why it's torture. Now if only we could do it to more of those right-wing shriekers.
Since I am not living in the US I am probably not as informed as I should be, but what do those right-wing shriekers - as you put it - actually say what's the point of it if it isn't torture? What I mean is if it isn't torture were they hoping that they could aquire information only due to an unpleasant - but not tortures - experience? Is that what is called advanced interrogation
I do not really understand what they were trying to achieve with those procedures anyway, torture or not.