Saw a post how a fox news reporter (Steve Harrigan) submitted to a very controlled version of waterboarding… and how he thinks its not to bad really.
I don’t know if you have the experience of feeling like you’re drowning… but it’s hideously psychologically traumatic… the real deal would be especially different from this “experiment” just because you know your captors dislike you, want to see you hurt. It isn’t primarily a physical type of torture, which is what makes it so effective, they can sit and do this to you ALL DAY. There is a finite amount of blood you can lose, there is a finite amount of pain before you pass out, however, with someone who is an expert at techniques like this… you can suffer this for hour after hour, day after day, week after week if they care to do that. After three attempts he was ready to spill his guts and he felt fine a short time later… I’m sure he did, he knew it was an experiment and that he wasn’t going to be rushed by a group of masked men dragged off to a room and suffocated repeatedly anytime they felt like it or thought you might have information they wanted.
I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. This reporter is sick in the head and a lot of the people making comments really don’t understand the ramifications of how mental torture can be more dehabilitating than physical torture.
Some of the comments on the Digg article have some interesting insights.