Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

It goes without saying that I knew I could stop the process at any time, and that when it was all over I would be released into happy daylight rather than returned to a darkened cell. But it’s been well said that cowards die many times before their deaths, and it was difficult for me to completely forget the clause in the contract of indemnification that I had signed. This document (written by one who knew) stated revealingly:

Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body.

(skip to the end, you may read the entire thing)

Which returns us to my starting point, about the distinction between training for something and training to resist it. One used to be told—and surely with truth—that the lethal fanatics of al-Qaeda were schooled to lie, and instructed to claim that they had been tortured and maltreated whether they had been tortured and maltreated or not. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true? I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath

Believe Me, It's Torture: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Hitchens is a Liberal, but he is not a hate filled little person like MOST of the AWE Libs...this is good reading.

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There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.
~Archibald MacLeish

I almost drowned swimming across a river because I had severe cramps in my legs.
Afterwards, I confessed all of my sins to my girlfriend.
Yes, it does cause neurological system damage!

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The United States of Indentured Servants

So...you told her about you and her sister eh??

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There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.
~Archibald MacLeish

Ut oh, someone else has had the same problem!

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The United States of Indentured Servants

LMAO....well said.

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There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.
~Archibald MacLeish

Yer both retards.

Hooray - you have won the award for being

THE BIGGEST FUCKHEAD ON THE PLANET

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy

I think I'd rather be Water Boarded than be starpped into a chair in Cowardly's Basement with him...

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There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.
~Archibald MacLeish

I don't know I get panic attacks when I think of having panties put on my head. Especially before I get my cultural friendly meal. Now if you ask me that is real torture.

If only we were as sensitive as our enemy. Nothing says love better than being in an orange jumpsuit with hooded cowards taking a rusty knife and lopping off a head.

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McCAIN PALIN

Amazed, thank you for the article. If I remember right, the US has stopped using this technique in SERE school.