Bitch About Hitchens Here

Vomit

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

There are plenty of things Hitch, or indeed Dawkins has said which are easy and to disagree with and worth disagreeing with strongly (someone earlier mentioned Hitch's "Women aren't funny" article and Dawkins response to Elevatorgate springs to mind too).

'Women aren't funny' springs to your mind as something to seriously disagree with 'Hitch' on, but the Iraq war doesn't? So do you agree with the war?

You see, it is more than just a matter of agreeing to disagree with someone. 'Hitch' had a voice, a pulpit, a position of power and influence, and he used it to help push public opinion into supporting the war. He was intelligent and educated enough to know how immoral it really was, but in the end, his opinion was probably for sale.

Brown Bomber

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

I believe you mean reject no? You have offered no refutation in your post.

It's a matter of dispute, albeit an utterly pedantic one in the context of our debate.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/refute

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

On the subject of his supposed support for torture, I saw Hitchens get waterboarded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58

More accurately you saw Hitchens carry out a PR stunt which (bravely) saw him carry out a SERE training excercise which lasted about 5 seconds.

This is the much harsher reality of waterboarding as used by the US.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day.

Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.
http://www.salon.com/2010/03/09/waterboarding_for_dummies/

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

and it is one of the things I respect about him that he changed his view on the practice afterwards. It is one thing to hold an opinion, it is quite another to continue to hold it after you see evidence of your mistake.

Did he change his view afterwards? Is he on record of promoting waterboarding prior to his experience?

Is he on record with unequivical condemnation of waterboarding of "enemy" detainees?

Plautus

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

On the subject of his supposed support for torture, I saw Hitchens get waterboarded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58 and it is one of the things I respect about him that he changed his view on the practice afterwards. It is one thing to hold an opinion, it is quite another to continue to hold it after you see evidence of your mistake.

If you read the link to the Vanity Fair column which BB provided, Hitchens' view of waterboarding is somewhat more equivocal than that (even though he does reject the continuation of the practice):

When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl? On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

I understand this viewpoint alright; and I pronounce it a god-awful ****ty one.

Mark200

Plautus wrote: »

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

On the subject of his supposed support for torture, I saw Hitchens get waterboarded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58 and it is one of the things I respect about him that he changed his view on the practice afterwards. It is one thing to hold an opinion, it is quite another to continue to hold it after you see evidence of your mistake.

If you read the link to the Vanity Fair column which BB provided, Hitchens' view of waterboarding is somewhat more equivocal than that (even though he does reject the continuation of the practice):

When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl? On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

I understand this viewpoint alright; and I pronounce it a god-awful ****ty one.

Plautus, I think you should have included the previous sentence to give the relevant context:

As they have just tried to demonstrate to me, a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time. When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack......

Although I still don't completely agree with his point. But that paragraph shouldn't take away from the overall jist of his article. Including the title "Believe Me, It's Torture"

Dades

Between this and the feedback thread, we've agreed to officially reopen this thread to all Hitchens-related business. Be it his choice of whiskey, or indeed the Iraq war. What we had envisioned as a "Bitch about Hitchens" thread has not turned out as we thought it might, rather into a single item about Iraq, which isn't ideal.

At any rate, in the interest of having an outlet open to all, knock yourselves out, as they say.

Just keep it above board, people.

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

What we had envisioned as a "Bitch about Hitchens" thread

'We'? :pac:

Brown Bomber

Mark200 wrote: »

Although I still don't completely agree with his point. But that paragraph shouldn't take away from the overall jist of his article. Including the title "Believe Me, It's Torture"

We can't be sure that the title wasn't written by a sub-editor though. And in any case he moves away from this position later.

Emphasis his.

...but it hit me yet again that this is certainly the language of torture.

Maybe I am being premature in phrasing it thus.

Brown Bomber

Plautus wrote: »

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

I understand this viewpoint alright; and I pronounce it a god-awful ****ty one.

I've read it again and the impression that I get from it now is that from Hitchens perspective waterboarding is torturous yet less than torture - afterall, a sixty-year-old, overweight, chain-smoking, alcoholic survived to write another day - and that torture isn't an acceptable practice to carry out on our fellow humans but is a pefectly acceptable practice to carry out on sub-humans, Islamic fundamentalists, in a dirty war, of their making.

Plautus

That's partly why I name-dropped Robert Kagan. Some of Hitch's screeds seem to have the tenor of this gem from 2002.

Particularly:

“The challenge to the postmodern world,” Cooper argues, “is to get used to the idea of double standards.” Among themselves, Europeans may “operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security.” But when dealing with the world outside Europe, “we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era — force, preemptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary.” This is Cooper’s principle for safeguarding society: “Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle.”

Cooper’s argument is directed at Europe, and it is appropriately coupled with a call for Europeans to cease neglecting their defenses, “both physical and psychological.” But what Cooper really describes is not Europe’s future but America’s present. For it is the United States that has had the difficult task of navigating between these two worlds, trying to abide by, defend, and further the laws of advanced civilized society while simultaneously employing military force against those who refuse to abide by those rules.

Always makes you think of that aphorism of Benjamin Franklin's about those who compromise freedom to achieve security deserving neither and losing both.

Penn

Brown Bomber wrote: »

I've read it again and the impression that I get from it now is that from Hitchens perspective waterboarding is torturous yet less than torture - afterall, a sixty-year-old, overweight, chain-smoking, alcoholic survived to write another day - and that torture isn't an acceptable practice to carry out on our fellow humans but is a pefectly acceptable practice to carry out on sub-humans, Islamic fundamentalists, in a dirty war, of their making.

Could you quote the parts of that article which lead you to that conclusion? I just read it there, and I don't see that at all.

Mark200

If you watch from 4.36 you will see him refer to it as torture and that someone "should go down for this". Also if you search "hitchens waterboarding" you will see him many times saying something similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a26f-A2n1vM

Brown Bomber

Mark200 wrote: »

If you watch from 4.36 you will see him refer to it as torture and that someone "should go down for this". Also if you search "hitchens waterboarding" you will see him many times saying something similar.

Hitchens is not the arbitrator of what is torture so his opinion on whether anything is torture is largely irrelevant. Especially as most people already know that waterboarding is torture.

Okay, he does go a step further but it's still not unequivocal condemnation of torture. In his entire catalogue of work is there not a single instance where he says "torture is wrong"?

BTW, did you notice his obfuscating when the interiviewer asked him about the Bush administration and he immediately began to pin it on the CIA, who were acting under orders from the Bush administration and brought up Pinochet and Nelson Mandela and even himself and never mentioned anything about the Bush administration at all? Rather slimey behaviour.

Mark200

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Hitchens is not the arbitrator of what is torture so his opinion on whether anything is torture is largely irrelevant. Especially as most people already know that waterboarding is torture.

Okay, he does go a step further but it's still not unequivocal condemnation of torture. In his entire catalogue of work is there not a single instance where he says "torture is wrong"?

BTW, did you notice his obfuscating when the interiviewer asked him about the Bush administration and he immediately began to pin it on the CIA, who were acting under orders from the Bush administration and brought up Pinochet and Nelson Mandela and even himself and never mentioned anything about the Bush administration at all? Rather slimey behaviour.

He elaborates on his views at 4:04 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlSFTqGIyKY

He describes it as "crossing a very dangerous line".

No he may not have said the exact quote "torture is wrong", but his view on it is obvious.

For example, you also haven't said "torture is wrong" but it's clear what your view is on it.

His view is clear too.

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

In his entire catalogue of work is there not a single instance where he says "torture is wrong"?

Reading his Vanity Fair article, I must say I don't get the general impression that he's an enthusiastic supporter of torture, either against himself, or against his enemies.

The general tone of the piece, as well as the specifics, such as the sensation of being drowned, of "gasping", of "sobbing", of "claustrophobia" etc, etc with respect to waterboarding "when contrasted to actual torture [...] is more like foreplay" all combine, at least in my mind, to suggest that he finds it mildly unpleaseant, and therefore, that he doesn't believe it's right.

I would imagine that most people who read his article would come away with that view also. And having heard, seen and read a fair amount of Hitchens, I wouldn't have categorized him as somebody who was too frightened to suggest that torture was wrong.

Brown Bomber

Penn wrote: »

Could you quote the parts of that article which lead you to that conclusion? I just read it there, and I don't see that at all.

Sure, I'll try at least. Of course, it's only my interpretation. Hitchens' intentionally, IMO; obtuse.

1

"They knew about everything from unarmed combat to enhanced interrogation "

Enhanced interrogation? What's that? and why did Hitchens use the term? Well it's another word for torture that Bush created to allow the CIA to legally torture captives.

Further info here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/18/usa.terrorism

2

"were going to show me as nearly as possible what real waterboarding might be like"


This is simply not true. Hitchens' experience was as far removed from actual CIA waterboarding as getting your nails clipped in a salon is to having them pulled with a pliars.
http://www.salon.com/2010/03/09/waterboarding_for_dummies/

3

Waterboarding is for Green Berets in training, or wiry young jihadists whose teeth can bite through the gristle of an old goat.

This is dehumanising and plays on negative stereotypes of the barbaric goat-herder variety.

4

For my current “handlers”

Why not torturers?

5

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Why not simply say waterboarding is torture???

Also, it's interesting that he paralells his opinion of wateroboarding with Lincoln's views on slavery because Lincoln is synonymous with anti-slavery yet never was comprehensively anti-slavery
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo104.html

6

I was briefly embarrassed that I hadn’t earned or warranted these refinements, but it hit me yet again that this is certainly the language of torture....Maybe I am being premature in phrasing it thus.

The "language of torture"? Why not simply and unequivocally "This is torture"? And then proclaims himself possibly mistaken to even equate the non-commital claim of the "language of torture" with the processes of waterboarding.

7

The team who agreed to give me a hard time in the woods of North Carolina belong to a highly honorable group.

This same team are the enhanched interrogation technique experts, i.e. torture experts are a "highly honourable group" in Hitchens view.

8

These heroesstay on the ramparts at all hours and in all weather, and if they make a mistake they may be arraigned in order to scratch some domestic political itch.

Hitchens has now elevated these torture experts from "highly honourable" to "heroes".

9

Faced with appalling enemies who make horror videos of torture and beheadings, they feel that they are the ones who confront denunciation in our press, and possible prosecution.

This is only putting forward a skewed version of the reality. US soliders/contractors have also made horror videos of torture and murder and also there is no Habeus Corpus for these detainees subjected to "enhanced interrogation", with many of them being innocent.

10

When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack.

Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl?

This is quite clear: We are not as bad as the "appaling enemies" who use "actual torture" i.e. worse than waterboarding - (so get off our backs!)

11

On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.

Hitchens doesn't "trust" anyone who doesn't "clearly understand" that in this epic clash of civilisations that you need to fight fire (torture) with fire (torture).

Any attempt to hold the Bush Administration accountable for committing torture is "diseased" and "lame"

12

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.

Everyone tortured in the War on Terror is ipso facto Al Qaeda and as such are trained to lie so even if they claim to be tortured, they possibly weren't

Mark200

There are so many misinterpretations there that it feels like my head is about to explode just from reading the post.

I think you really are just seeing what you want to see. I don't think anyone who reads that article without expectations or prejudgements could come out with such interpretations.

robindch

Mark200 wrote: »

There are so many misinterpretations there that it feels like my head is about to explode just from reading the post.

At the risk of godwinning myself, BB's claims read like those of a Holocaust-denier who passed by the skeptics forum some years back and who maintained, in the teeth of insurmountable logic to the contrary, that the lack of a document, sound-clip or video of Adolf Hitler ordering the execution of jews, or hearing of same, amounted to firm evidence that Hitler knew nothing of either, and was therefore innocent of the crimes that history has generally laid at his door.

At a certain point, and I think this thread reached it a while ago, it's simply not worth continuing a debate about whether somebody who voluntarily submitted to torture, and who wrote a powerful and condemnatory piece concerning his experiences, thought it was right or wrong.

King Mob

robindch wrote: »

At the risk of godwinning myself, BB's claims read like those of a Holocaust-denier who passed by the skeptics forum some years back and who maintained, in the teeth of insurmountable logic to the contrary, that the lack of a document, sound-clip or video of Adolf Hitler ordering the execution of jews, or hearing of same, amounted to firm evidence that Hitler knew nothing of either, and was therefore innocent of the crimes that history has generally laid at his door.

At a certain point, and I think this thread reached it a while ago, it's simply not worth continuing a debate about whether somebody who voluntarily submitted to torture, and who wrote a powerful and condemnatory piece concerning his experiences, thought it was right or wrong.

A bit like the Sam Harris thread where he insisted that Harris never criticised the Jews despite BB never reading Harris' stuff and despite quotes to the contrary.

pH

King Mob wrote: »

A bit like the Sam Harris thread where he insisted that Harris never criticised the Jews despite BB never reading Harris' stuff and despite quotes to the contrary.

If you get tired of criticising them for what they have said - have a go at them for things they never said.

Brilliant.

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

At the risk of godwinning myself, BB's claims read like those of a Holocaust-denier who passed by the skeptics forum some years back and who maintained, in the teeth of insurmountable logic to the contrary, that the lack of a document, sound-clip or video of Adolf Hitler ordering the execution of jews, or hearing of same, amounted to firm evidence that Hitler knew nothing of either, and was therefore innocent of the crimes that history has generally laid at his door.

How funny you should make that point! I made the exact same point to Magicmarker in this very thread at post: 143 . This is when I was supposedly trolling

Brown Bomber wrote: »

This is the same idiotic argument of holocaust deniers who ask you to point out where Hitler stated he wanted to exterminate the Jews.

Who called me a troll literally within five minutes at post 145

You've thanked his troll-calling posts so where does that leave us?

Brown Bomber wrote: »

At a certain point, and I think this thread reached it a while ago, it's simply not worth continuing a debate about whether somebody who voluntarily submitted to torture, and who wrote a powerful and condemnatory piece concerning his experiences, thought it was right or wrong.

This is condemnatory?

"When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay."

Brown Bomber

pH wrote: »

If you get tired of criticising them for what they have said - have a go at them for things they never said.

Brilliant.

Yes. It's called lying by omission and is a propaganda tool.

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

This is condemnatory?

Yes -- have a read of it.

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

Yes -- have a read of it.

I have and still can't find where he specifically addresses the question of the morality of torture. Could you point it out?

MagicMarker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a26f-A2n1vM

''.....So they try and cover their traces, and failures, and their betrayals, by torturing people, so they can say 'hey we've got results at last', this will not do, we can't have that. So someone has to go down for this I think.''

And at the end he mentions that abu ghraib was worse under Saddam, but ''that doesn't excuse us''.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlSFTqGIyKY

On waterboarding, quoting Abe Lincoln - ''If that's not wrong then nothing is wrong.'' and ''if this doesn't count as torture then nothing does.''

''To have it authorised and practised with official permission is crossing a very dangerous line.''

On torture - ''IT SHOULD BE DISCONTINUED''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25CPsnU2dXk

When asked if he would approve of torture in a ''ticking timebomb'' scenario - ''The more seductive the excuse, the more I'm opposed to it''.

Brown Bomber

MagicMarker wrote: »

''.....So they try and cover their traces, and failures, and their betrayals, by torturing people, so they can say 'hey we've got results at last', this will not do, we can't have that. So someone has to go down for this I think.''

A question of legality not morality.

MagicMarker wrote: »

And at the end he mentions that abu ghraib was worse under Saddam, but ''that doesn't excuse us''.

Unclear if he meant legally or morally.

MagicMarker wrote: »

On waterboarding, quoting Abe Lincoln - ''If that's not wrong then nothing is wrong.'' and ''if this doesn't count as torture then nothing does.''

This is irrelevant. As you've just stated the issue here is "is waterboarding torture" not is torture immoral.

(He had a perfect opportunity in this instance to give a clear indication on his thoughts on if waterboarding is torture as he was asked a yes/no question on if he considered waterboarding torture)

MagicMarker wrote: »

''To have it authorised and practised with official permission is crossing a very dangerous line.''

Again, not clear if it's crossing a moral a legal line.

MagicMarker wrote: »

On torture - ''IT SHOULD BE DISCONTINUED''

More accurately on waterboarding. Again, why should it be discontinued? Legal reasons? Moral reasons? Effectiveness? His views are unclear

MagicMarker wrote: »

When asked if he would approve of torture in a ''ticking timebomb'' scenario - ''The more seductive the excuse, the more I'm opposed to it''.

This is more talking in riddles. He was asked a specific yes/no question but declined, AGAIN.

Here however he does expand on his opposition - not moral reasons but legal reasons.

Sarky

You... You really think that wasn't clear?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

you are just incredible

Corkfeen

I'm betting that won't be good enough for bomber. I'm gonna take a turn at bitching about Hitchens. My complaint is simple and concise, the man was far too charming, unnaturally so. He seemed to have an ability to make people like him even when they were trying to hate him. God damn him.

Said bitching may not be bitching but this topic needs to move on somewhat.... :P

Brown Bomber

Sarky wrote: »

You... You really think that wasn't clear?

I think they are ambiguous statements, yes.

MagicMarker

Move in now move out
Hands up now hands down
Back up back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now

Breath in now breath out
Hands up now hands down
Back up back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now

Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin' (x4)