I love the Straight Dope message boards. I've not ever been a contributor there. I do however, enjoy reading the many discussions attempting to sort out this or that.

Linked, from Boing Boing this morning, is this account of a Straight Doper going the distance on this matter. His account follows:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717

[the text of it]

I waterboard!
So much talk of waterboarding, so much controversy. But what is it really? How bad? I wanted to write the definitive thread on waterboarding, settle the issue. Torture, or not?

To determine the answer, I knew I had to try it. I looked at my two small children. Surely, in the interests of science?.....

But alas, my wife had objections.

Perhaps her?

Sadly, she is proficient in Ju Jitsu, and I am unlikely to waterboard her.

That leaves me.


***

Seriously, I determined to give this a try, see how bad it was: Settle the debate authoritatively. Torture, or not?

I figure I would be a good test subject. 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.

To determine whether waterboarding is an acceptable interrogation technique or torture I must research it an then undergo it myself. Once I have done this, Elucidator Diogenes Tomndeb and all the rest of those liberal scum (no offense intended) must accept my now accept my now expert opinion.

So, here's what I would do. First I would google waterboarding to understand the basic concepts than I would try it on myself. First, self inflicted and then, if necessary, inflicted by my wife.(she has no problem torturing me. We've been married almost 15 years.)

These are the results of my research and experience:

The goal of waterboarding is to simulate drowning without the actual drowning or inhalation into the lungs. In order to accomplish this the subject is forced to lie on an inclined plane with his head lower than his lungs and then water is dumped onto his/her face (always keeping the lungs above the "Water line.") This simulates drowning and causes a panic.

There are some advanced techniques that make this more extreme, but that's the basic concept.

Easy enough to duplicate. I have an inclined weight bench and a watering can. No problem. I lie on this and tilt the watercan 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 beleive those AL Zarqawi guys were such pussies.

Back to researching the advanced techniques:

The first of these is wet rag in mouth. I try it. Ok, I can handle this too. It makes it a little bit more difficult to maintain control. I didn't realize it, but the first time around I was selectively breathing through either mouth or nose, to help maintain control. The wet rag eliminates the mouth as an option. You have to really concentrate to maintain control, breathing very shallowly on the inhale and not allowing yourself to exhale until you have a good lungfull with which to expel the water in you nose throat and sinuses. Then, you have to inhale slowly but fast enough to pull in a lungful of air before your nose throat and sinuses fill up. Difficult, but doable with some self-control. I can see where this would get very unpleasant if you lost control, but still, not terrible, not torture, per se in my book. It wasn't as bad as my vasectomy or last root canal, and not nearly so bad as the last OP I read by Liberal.


Next up is saran wrap. 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 reall 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.

Now, those of you who know me will know that I am both enamored of my own toughness and prone to hyperbole. The former, I feel that I am justifiably proud of. The latter may be a truth in many cases, but this is the simple fact:

It took me ten minutes to recover my senses once I tried this. I was shuddering in a corner, convinced I narrowly escaped killing myself.

Here's what happened:

The water fills the hole in the saran wrap so that there is either water or vaccum 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.

I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You [b]know[b] you are dead and it's too late. Involuntary and total panic.

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It would be like telling you not to blink while I stuck a hot needle in your eye.

At the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved.

I never felt anything like it, and this was self-inflicted with a watering can, where I was in total control and never in any danger.

And I understood.

Waterboarding gets you to the point where you draw water up your respiratory tract triggering the drowning reflex. Once that happens, it's all over. No question.

Some may go easy without a rag, some may need a rag, some may need saran wrap.

Once you are there it's all over.

I didn't allow anybody else to try it on me. Inconceivable. I know I only got the barest taste of what it's about since I was in control, and not restrained and controlling the flow of water.

But there's no chance. No chance at all.

So, is it torture?

I'll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers, no question.

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.


Questions? Doubts?

How about a little electric shock???

I guess in a way, I'm more concerned about whether the technique itself will render useful information, rather than whether it's torture by definition. Obviously, it's torture. I've seen an example of it from a reporter that went through the process, and it's also been determined that waterboarding and other extreme techniques do not reveal reliable intel. So, it makes us look bad as a country and we get bad information. No wonder the Bush Administration likes it, it's right up their alley!

In a strange way I agree with you; I too am more concerned about whether useful info is derived from the technique. I just don't want anything to be completely off the table in an extreme, albeit rare, situation where someone has info about an imminent attack that will kill people, but is not revealing that info.

Here is an interesting read if you have the time.

Drop by Drop
by Evan Wallach
http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/wallach_drop_by_drop_draft_20061016.pdf

We have prosecuted people who have used waterboarding on our soldiers.

Attempts to change the definition of torture is all CYA.

Bill Clinton posed the possible use of torture this way: in one of those "click is ticking down to an imminent attack" scenarios that may never happen, the President should be able by executive order to authorize torture under extremely special circumstances. It should not be used routinely without the president's direct authorization.

Waterboarding is definitely torture.

Can you get useful information from torture? Maybe, maybe not. In the case always trotted out of the "ticking clock" to an attack, I guess if the information extracted leads to foiling the attack, it was useful information - you know, we'll make the torture stop if what you tell us directly leads to rounding up the bad guys/stopping the attack. But we've seen cases of false information before that was taken very seriously - remember all those warnings about supposed threats that turned out to be total BS?

Andrew

"the President should be able by executive order to authorize torture under extremely special circumstances. It should not be used routinely without the president's direct authorization."

How about this: torture should only be used under extremely special circumstances and ONLY WITH THE PRESIDENT PRESENT.

No President, no torture, period. No sending a proxy like the VP.

That would be impractical. It seems as though your motivation for that clause is undermine the authority of the President because you don't like him. That's not a very practical suggestion.

It's torture. And IF it gets results, I'm ok with it. I hate the pretending that it's not torture though. The administration is playing their cards fairly well so far. We are getting desensitized to it and not being so reactionary.

"That would be impractical. It seems as though your motivation for that clause is undermine the authority of the President because you don't like him. That's not a very practical suggestion."

Its PERFECTLY practical. If we need to torture someone because of a RARE and UNUSUAL circumstance, then its prudent enough to call in the president and make him/her observe.

Why? To show him how bad it is and hope he changes his mind about it? I mean, to what end? To make him an " accomplice "?

No, not to change his mind, but to ensure that torture is used only when absolutely necessary.

For instance, any given president might stomach torturing someone to save hundreds of lives in a kidnapping situation, but would probably not stomach the torture of someone for probable non-existent WMDs.

In addition, if the tortured subject was eventually proven to have no knowledge of anything he was tortured for, the President would have to pretty much resign for the goof up.

I want accountablity.

Right now the president of the U.S. can pretty much go out and kill 100,000 citizens of a country on bogus claims without much accountability.

I think its reasonable whether the President is Bush or anyone else.

And how would Bush be accountable by virtue of him being present? What would change from what we have now?

( You and I both know it's not going to happen. But I'm still interested in your take ).

For one thing, if any other incidents of torture occurred and the president wasn't present, it would be jail time for whoever ordered the torture. If that order came from the President, then he'd CLEARLY be guilty of misconduct.

The law would be simple. No president present, no torture.

Perhaps a penalty can be written into the law. Regardless, there would be a clearly defined line for us to know when illegal torture occurred. Something that is not readily apparent today.

Sorry, but that's just ridiculous. The President is an executive of the highest level. He should be running the country, and those involved directly in interrogation would be way down the chain from him. Additionally, the very nature of allowing torture in rare situations means that timeliness is of great concern. The concept wouldn't work if it had to be based around the President's schedule! Can you imagine not waterboarding someone who knows exactly where the "dirty bomb" has been placed because they have to wait for the President to fly in? Ridiculous.

Or , since the Presidents travels are usually well documented, if the President made a sudden change, that would be an indication to the bad guys to hurry up their schedule.

I don't think there is much argument against doing what ever it takes, if there if good intelligence someone has a WMD in the US, and is about to set it off.

Its the other areas that is open for discussion, how far do you go, in interviewing a suspect in ordinary terrorist operations?

A Lt Col was forced to retire, because he pointed an unloaded weapon at a suspected terrorist, and threatened to "Blow his head off", if he didn't talk.

I will say, that soldiers need someone watching them, and making sure they stay under control. After a few months, of watching what happens to your comrades, by an enemy not following any rules, you tend to become insensitive to your own actions.

Yep. That's reality. It's too hard ( and wholly ineffective ) to play nice when they exhibit almost animal behavior. We do it too. And that bugs me as well. Even more than what they do. But comeon, they seem to know NO reason.

"Sorry, but that's just ridiculous. The President is an executive of the highest level. He should be running the country, and those involved directly in interrogation would be way down the chain from him."

Ok, then, NO torture, period!