Three Young Men Try Waterboarding And Tell the Tale

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Three Young Men Try Waterboarding And Tell the Tale
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
January 31, 2008; Page A1

RIO RANCHO, N.M. -- One night last month, Jean-Pierre Larroque drove into the desert here, lay down in the road and waited for one of his best friends to waterboard him. Just a few hours earlier, the 26-year-old Peace Corps volunteer had been debating with two close friends whether waterboarding is torture. Finishing up a pizza dinner, Mr. Larroque casually suggested that the three settle the matter by trying it out for themselves. They filled a two-liter Coke bottle with water, grabbed a small towel and headed to a vacant patch of dirt road in this suburb of Albuquerque. With a video camera rolling, one of the friends draped the towel over Mr. Larroque's face and began to pour.

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Waterboarding has been in use since at least the Spanish Inquisition. Many medical professionals warn that it can be fatal. In Senate testimony last fall, Allen Keller, a physician and professor at the New York University School of Medicine, said that waterboarding creates "a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water." For those who have gone through waterboarding, the long-term effects can include panic attacks, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, Dr. Keller warned at the time. Kaj Larsen, a military veteran and journalist, had himself waterboarded on camera for a segment on Current TV, the left-leaning, youth-oriented cable channel created by former Vice President Al Gore.

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Mr. Larroque and his two friends, Walter Gaspar, 27, and Trent Toulouse, 27, had frequently talked about whether waterboarding should be considered torture. "It doesn't leave a mark like if someone put a cigarette out on your face, and it's not going to kill you," says Mr. Larroque, a rail-thin man with wavy hair and stubble on his face. "So the question we kept coming back to was whether waterboarding could be torture if it mainly affected your mind." On Dec. 11, the three friends got together for pizza and beer at Mr. Gaspar's house. They were watching cable-news reports about congressional efforts to ban waterboarding when Mr. Larroque and Mr. Toulouse began to joke about trying it out for themselves.

The conversations turned serious as they discovered that waterboarding required no training or equipment. Mr. Larroque found a "How To Do It" guide at Waterboarding.org, which opposes the practice. It said the only things needed were an inclined surface, a container of water and a damp towel or piece of plastic wrap. The plastic wrap is put over the mouth, leaving the nose and eyes uncovered. The water is then poured into the person's nose, filling his sinuses. The plastic, meanwhile, prevents the person from expelling the water. With a towel, the cloth is used to cover the person's whole face before the water is poured.

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Mr. Gaspar suggested going to an undeveloped part of town not far away. It was just after 10 p.m. when Mr. Gaspar drove with his friends to a narrow dirt road called Progress Boulevard. The initial plan was to have Mr. Larroque lie on the hood of the car, but he kept sliding off. Instead, they spotted a short stretch of road with a modest incline. With Mr. Gaspar filming, Mr. Larroque lay down on the frozen ground with his arms at his sides and his head leaning back. Mr. Toulouse poured. On the videotape, the water hits Mr. Larroque for about 10 seconds before he jerks upright, sending the towel flying. In a posting on his blog, Mr. Larroque said he was surprised by how fast his air supply ran out. In other circumstances, he says he can hold his breath long enough to swim the length of a pool. "Waterboarding is like a one-way valve," he said in an interview. "You've got water pouring in and the cloth keeps you from spitting it out, so you can only exhale once....Even holding my breath, it felt like the air was being sucked out, like a vacuum."

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120174119328630495.html (subscription)

[lligrd]

1. Kudos To Those Who Doubt It Is Torture And Try It

I recommend it to all of those who doubt. Try it and then tell me it is not torture.