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alexandraerinA (largely rhetorical) question does occur to me. If the practice now known as "waterboarding"* is not torture, then what exactly is the point of the exercise?
Is it perhaps intended to relax the recipients of the treatment by simulating a return to the water-bound existence they experienced in the womb?
Is it supposed to lull them into a false sense of invincibility when they repeatedly experience the sensation of drowning and do not die?
Cracked tells me that at least one employer has used waterboarding as a team-building motivational exercise, so maybe it's to foster a sense of camaraderie between the interrogators and detainees! It's like that falling backwards thing: once the detainees know they can trust their captors to not let them actually die, they'll be able to confide in them with confidence!
Seriously, if it's not torture, what is the whole thing meant to actually accomplish**, vis-a-vis making someone who's unwilling to cooperate more willing to cooperate and how is it meant to accomplish it?
*This is a relatively recent term, as William Safire noted*** in 2008. "Waterboarding" as a verb is first attested in 2004. Apparently, the use of the term "water board" first appeared in 1976, as part of the longer phrase "water board torture". This was, I gather, viewed as more precise than the umbrella term which for all of the history of the modern English language had covered it and many similar practices: "water torture".
It's like making an "all-beef hamburger" into a vegetarian option by taking out the word "beef": "I am a vegetarian. I only eat all hamburgers."
**This, of course, is a separate question from the matter of what torture actually accomplishes, which may include any number of things that don't involve getting clear and reliable intel.
***Read the last line of that article. Chilling, isn't it?
Is it perhaps intended to relax the recipients of the treatment by simulating a return to the water-bound existence they experienced in the womb?
Is it supposed to lull them into a false sense of invincibility when they repeatedly experience the sensation of drowning and do not die?
Cracked tells me that at least one employer has used waterboarding as a team-building motivational exercise, so maybe it's to foster a sense of camaraderie between the interrogators and detainees! It's like that falling backwards thing: once the detainees know they can trust their captors to not let them actually die, they'll be able to confide in them with confidence!
Seriously, if it's not torture, what is the whole thing meant to actually accomplish**, vis-a-vis making someone who's unwilling to cooperate more willing to cooperate and how is it meant to accomplish it?
*This is a relatively recent term, as William Safire noted*** in 2008. "Waterboarding" as a verb is first attested in 2004. Apparently, the use of the term "water board" first appeared in 1976, as part of the longer phrase "water board torture". This was, I gather, viewed as more precise than the umbrella term which for all of the history of the modern English language had covered it and many similar practices: "water torture".
It's like making an "all-beef hamburger" into a vegetarian option by taking out the word "beef": "I am a vegetarian. I only eat all hamburgers."
**This, of course, is a separate question from the matter of what torture actually accomplishes, which may include any number of things that don't involve getting clear and reliable intel.
***Read the last line of that article. Chilling, isn't it?