When Erich “Mancow” Muller decided to be waterboarded he thought it would give him authority to condone it. What he got was a traumatic epiphany against the use of waterboarding. He now regards it as torture.
Interestingly, there are several conditions that actually would have aided Mr. Muller’s ability to resist the torture. He was not completely bound. He was not waterboarded by anyone with experience. He was not sleep deprived or otherwise mentally unprepared. And he had the comfort of knowing that he could stop the waterboarding at any moment. Despite those advantages, he is now thoroughly convinced that waterboarding is torture.
It is immensely shocking then, that Gawker.com would try to invalidate Mr. Muller’s experience. They wrote:
So, they argue, if Mr. Muller did not get the full experience it is not legitimate. I’m sorry but that only works in one direction. All the mitigating factors at work, the ones I just listed, serve only to give him comfort. The fact that he was not a part of the full experience only means that it would be that much worse in Guantanamo and other sites – not easier, or somehow less tortuous. Gawker’s argument would only hold water if Mr. Muller still believed that waterboarding was not torture.
They went on:
“We’ve learned that Mancow can’t take six seconds of having water poured on his face—we guess he doesn’t take showers?”
Perhaps I have been showering incorrectly my whole life. But, when I shower, I don’t generally lean my head back and force water into my nose and mouth. But perhaps that explains Gawker’s faulty logic – not enough oxygen to the brain.
Here is Erich Muller’s response to Gawker aired on Keith’s Olbermann’s Countdown.
