Funny How Getting Waterboarded Can Change Your Perspective On Whether Or Not Its Torture

*Update: I found a YouTube clip that has more footage and the whole scene played out at once.




Now before we go any further I want to point out that what Erich "Mancow" Muller went through wasn't exactly the way waterboarding is done to our military nor what was done to the detainees. Usually the towel is placed over the mouth and nose (check OLC memos if you don't believe me) which makes it worse. Still this right wing radio talker could only last a grand total of 7 seconds. I wonder what he would have said if it was done to him almost 200 times in a month like we did to KSM.

Here is an excerpt from the accompanying article.

Listeners had the chance to decide whether Mancow himself or his co-host, Chicago radio personality Pat Cassidy, would undergo the interrogation method during the broadcast. The voters ultimately decided Mancow would be the one donning the soaked towel and shackles, and at about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio that was compared to a "dungeon" by Cassidy.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

And this is precisely why the most bellicose wingnuts who say waterboarding isn't torture ie the Sean Hannity's and Liz Cheney's of the world, will never actually allow themselves to be waterboarded.

(h/t Glenzilla)