I was just about to write how busy my week’s been, somehow justifying why I am not actually going to blog much today, but then I figured, I probably should try to cut excuses from my life as much as possible. While my week has been busy, I had plenty of opportunities to stick to my goal. Lucky for me I never specified in the LHIA rulebook how extensive my blogs had to be. Muhahaha. Although I do feel the guilt, because it’s not what I had intended it to be in the unwritten rules.
Iraq is such a broad subject, one that I can’t really address without wanting to waterboard myself. Lulz? No, I’m serious. A few weeks ago the magical word “waterboarding” kept rearing it’s little head in many news articles. Being that I hadn’t heard about this topic much before, I had to read more into it. First of all, it’s absurd to deny this as torture. You could probably convince a jury that this is physical torture even under the most controlled conditions. Even if there is only temporary reduction in oxygen, even if we skip the alternative physical abuse from the abusers that is inevitable to happen during a struggle, I still imagine it’s very demanding on the lungs. Even if the abuser only experienced gagging, that’s physically abusive. But who are we kidding? I would doubt a single situation would ever be so controlled that only one of these items of physical abuse occurred. However, I think that in such a situation the more pressing issue is the psychological torture. You’re essentially simulating drowning or near-death, even though you may know there is no intention to kill you. This is traumatic. If you’re insane, you may argue that being in a jail is psychologically traumatic as well, which can be true, but poses not as much of a threat and is a necessary thing. Hell, a sensitive individual can still feel traumatized in a theme park, with beautiful flowers everywhere, fluffy bunnies hopping to their right, deers jumping to their left, and money falling from the sky (actually, I’m not extremely sensitive..but that does sound kind of creepy). But this psychological torture is worse than actually drowning. At least when you drown you don’t actually have to think about the experience ever again (guess what, you’re DEAD!). But the mind is a dangerous thing, despite it’s greatness. The mind essentially provides it’s own form of torture on itself; the mind mind-fucks itself, so to speak.
I really wonder how this was at first determined to not equal torture. That conclusion is torture in itself. You know what else is torture in itself? Watching this video. If I recall correctly, I was squirming the first time I watched this. Not pleasant. I’ll admit now, I’m curious to feel what waterboarding is like. It almost seems not enough to just say it’s torture based on third-party accounts alone. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not actually going to waterboard myself. That just sounds sadistic. 
Filed under: Controversy, News
