Video: Christopher Hitchens gets waterboarded

WARNING: Not for the faint of heart.

If you want to understand what waterboarding is and how mentally excruciating it is, watch Christopher Hitchens go through the experience for a recent Vanity Fair article. I was watching the video and I thought they were just warming him up. I had no idea that what they were doing was the actual torture until Hitchens caved. Yikes.

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered.