Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Benjamin Carter ·
February 11, 2012 at 12:14am
It seems that for his newest film, actor Denzel Washington has decided to sit in the hot seat. Literally. In a scene where waterboarding is being used on his character, Denzel did his own stunt. That's correct. He volunteered to be waterboarded. And not only did he survive it, he lasted longer than the director of the film thought he would.
Uncomfortable as all get out? You bet! Will it make the person want to give up any information they have? According to Denzel, yes. Torture? No.
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Jul '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Denzel is a class act in many ways including his charity for servicemen.
Aug '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
I still wish he'd played Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight.
Mar '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
CIA agents undergo waterboarding as part of their training. By an large they cry uncle in under 30 seconds from what I understand and then go on with their lives. Are we torturing agents as part of their training?
In many ways this whole question seems very academic to me, "What is the definition of torture?" etc. etc.
Jul '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Roberto: CIA agents undergo waterboarding as part of their training. By an large they cry uncle in under 30 seconds from what I understand and then go on with their lives. Are we torturing agents as part of their training?
In many ways this whole question seems very academic to me, "What is the definition of torture?" etc. etc. · 51 minutes ago
I'd take 30 seconds of waterboarding over reading another David Brooks article.
Apr '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Look, whatever one thinks of waterboarding, there's a big difference between agreeing to have it done to you, or having it done to you in a training scenario, by people you essentially trust-and knowing that you can stop it at any time-versus having it done to you by agents of a hostile foreign power, whose intentions w/r/t how long they'll do it, and at what intervals, they make deliberately opaque in order to cause additional stress and fear in the subject. I'm sure, for example, that the agents waterboarding KSM deliberately strove to instill that very type of doubt and fear in him, which is probably why they broke him so fast. It's hard to believe that Denzel Washington had to deal with that element of it, though it's still laudable that he, like Hitchens, would agree to undergo it to see what it was like.
Jul '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Fear of death does change the dance tune as we all hold on to something at times of suffering.
Mar '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Of course you are entirely correct. It would be fruitful for those who wish to dwell on this issue to bring up the points you have rather than engage in a debate on torture that just seems to descend into hysteria. Few, none that I see, have so I simply tire of this and tend to dismiss critiques.
Dec '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Benjamin,
I would recommend that Thomas L. Friedman, Paul Krugman, and most of all The King of the Moabite Mainstream Media himself, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., be continuosly waterboarded. I am not interested whether they talk or not. Just keep waterboarding them.
Happy, Happy, Thoughts.
Regards,
Jim
Dec '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Spot on commentary, gentlemen!
Mar '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
It has always seemed crazy that people screamed about this, I think it was because the opportunity presented itself rather than they really cared one way or the other. Get Bush, Oh, he tortured people, he is a bad man.
When it comes to interrogation, even good cop bad cop can be torture.
Maybe John Yoo can interview Denzel?
Mar '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
I can't remember which "celebrity" waterboarding participant it was, but when asked if it qualified as torture or not, the response was "I don't know, I'll have to have them do it again."
If you have undergone it, and you need to have another go-round to decide whether or not it's torture, it's not torture.
Feb '12
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Give it up for, Denzel. Now for Sean Penn.. everybody gets a go.. rollup rollup.. I'd pay to see Sean get the water treatment and not an oar in sight.
Aug '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
If I volunteer to have my fingernails torn out with pliers, it's not torture?
Apr '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Funny how the moral relativists are absolutely sure this is torture, yet they slide down the slippery slope on just about everything else. Feelings - nothing more than feelings.
Dec '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Actually, I think KSM had to be waterboarded over a 100 times and it didn't really "break" him. He simply felt that he had put up enough resistance to satisfy his honor. In fact, he was so self-assured, and so reassured by incessant Leftist criticism of American Imperial (non-)abuses of detainees that he figured out pretty quickly how long the "torture" would last and held up his hand to count down the seconds to show his interrogators he knew when it would end.
Was it John Yoo who wrote about this?
Edited on February 11, 2012 at 1:12amOct '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
Western Chauvinist
Was it John Yoo who wrote about this?
I believe it was Marc Thiessen. In fact, Thiessen explained that waterboarding wasn't about getting information but getting the person to comply, which is why it was successful with KSM. The interrogators ask control questions when using this technique until the person answers the questions truthfully. What I never knew (and I think most still don't) is that the process isn't meant to gain information, thus the objection about 'tortured' confessions being unreliable is rejected.
Aug '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
I remember when the lefties were waterboarding folks outside Speaker Pelosi's office. My first thought was,
From the Enemy's perspective:
Edited on February 11, 2012 at 11:42amAug '10
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
I know plenty of Navy that has done this as part of captivity training. How does Denzel feel about the healthcare mandates ?
Jun '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
How do you think they found Bin Laden?
Jun '11
Re: Actors Are Being Waterboarded!
When Seal Team 6 nabbed bin Laden the only one in that group who hadn't been waterboarded was ObL.