It is torture. End of story.

This has been around for a bit, but here it is for the benefit of those who haven’t seen it before. 

I’ve been an admirer of a lot of Christopher Hitchens’s writing, and I agree with many, though certainly not all, of his opinions.  He is a highly entertaining and enlightening humanist and anti-theist writer and debater, among other things.   He admits to having been a Trotskyist in his youth, though like many of the radical left has mellowed somewhat with age.  To the surprise of many, he is an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq.  That does not mean that he sacrifices his other values.  He was critical of the practice of torture by waterboarding, and  he arranged to be waterboarded himself, to see what it was like.  Ths shows what happened, and he gives his own conclusions afterwards.
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He has challenged other political commentators, notably Sean Hannity, to try it themselves, but as far as I know, no one has dared.
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Comments

[Rasmenia]

Wow. I don't know if I would have been able to do what Hitchen's has done here. I would really love to see Hannity or one of his cohorts step up to his challenge, even though I know that they won't.

Torture is sadistic & useless. Someone being tortured is likely going to spit out anything to make the torture stop, whether it's fact or fiction.

A couple of months ago, I watched a clip of Jesse Ventura on Fox News, talking about when he had been waterboarded during his time as a Nacy SEAL. They were arguing with him, telling him that he hadn't been tortured. I was speechless. It's just ignorance to think that it is anything less than torture!

[Tina in Houston]

I'm a big fan of Hitchens as well. I love his unapologetic way of dealing with theists and wish I had his command of the English language. This video just shows that he is a moral and noble person and willing to show when people are wrong instead of just talking about it.

If you love Hitchens you gotta love Ventura. I wish my ex-husband, the ex-SEAL, was alive so I could talk to him about torture. I'm sure he would've had some interesting bits of information to add to the debate.

[J]

Seems to me that anyone I've heard interviewed who has gone through the process thinks it's torture. Also those who have witnessed it. When will people listen?