I thought this was a good little clip - though the actual waterboarding going on was in a friendly and non-threatening environment it was still too much after a while for the victim - who had even been trained to resist it by the military.
People will do better seeing what it is than just discussing it in the abstract.
I cannot embed a YouTube on here i don't think so I'll just give you the link to it here.
The important point here is that this is what the Vice President of the United States of America calls a no-brainer. I have asked this before and I will again, but when did we become the Soviet Union?
Disappearing people to gulags, torture, alienating world opinion...
So, if you have friends parsing this whole issue - and I still know people that I have to deal with on a regular basis that are still living in enough delusion that they'll probably vote R on the 7th (and I think that in itself is a major character flaw at this stage, knowing what is out there in the public domain)... if you have friends parsing this torture issue - and debating whether this is or that is... do what this video does and throw them the words of Saint John "the hypocrite" McCain who in one of his moments of clarity said: it isn't about who they are it is about who we are... and show them this... (I'd suggest actually do it to them in the spirit of education, but some may just find it a little too tempting to take me seriously if I did)
...are we people that do this?
Cos it sure looks like it to the rest of the world. The one thing we used to have going for us was that our monolithic view of nations or ethnic/civic groupings was not reciprocated and most people in the world actually were sophisticated enough to discern between the intent and actions of the American people and those that are in power in the current junta. However, given our propensity to collectively re-elect these muppets, and provide them with the support and power they need to continue their global reign of terror, people are beginning more and more to judge us by our own standards: i.e. grouping all Americans together as one and acting as though the loudest voices are indeed representative of our aims and intentions. (And why not, we used to do it about Russians, and still do about Chines, or Muslims, etc.)
Still... I am humble enough to recognise I don't have all the answers and may be wrong about this - after all, maybe they just hate us for our freedom.