We were sprawled on benches, chairs and countertops in a restaurant called Celebrations. There were fifteen of us from a half-dozen countries. Some had resigned themselves to fate and drifted into slumber, but it was a painful sleep. Their bodies were twisted and stuffed into agonizing positions to fit onto a bench or a chair. A few stalwarts, including myself, were drinking at the bar and getting angrier by the minute. We wanted blood.  We wanted the blood of a man who promised us salvation and then ripped it away.
Our flight from London to Mumbai had been delayed when a passenger suffered a heart attack, forcing us to land in Budapest. For this reason, we arrived around midnight and missed our connection to Hong Kong. Jet Airways officials showed no sign of concern. They simply herded us into a restaurant and explained that there were no flights to Hong Kong until midnight tomorrow. We would have to wait in the airport for twenty-four hours, because Indian immigration would not grant us one-day visas to stay in a hotel. We would not receive any compensation. We would not even be allowed in the fancy lounge with the comfortable chairs and wireless Internet
Of course, it didn’t happen exactly like that. It wasn’t one swoop of bad news, but a long protracted drama in which we were kept in the dark as much as possible, until the gory truth had to be revealed. At first, we knew nothing. Then, the first rumors of the delay crept in. After that, we heard about the problems with immigration. We worked ourselves into frenzy, speculating on our future, until a customer service agent finally descended into the restaurant and delivered the news.
The crowd was rabid. The agent had the appearance of a human being, but her unflinching robotics made me question if she was perhaps a mirage. As she stood, reiterating her sentence, I snuck behind her and poked her gently in the fold of her bicep. Her flesh felt squishy and real, yet she didn’t react to my prodding.
After she departed, they fed us, but we continued to be charged mercilessly for beer. Then, around 6 a.m., those still awake began to buzz with the unmistakable hum of rumor. I poked my head into a group and found out there was a flight to Bangkok in two hours. You could go there and fly to Hong Kong, if you wanted. My cohort and I didn’t care about Hong Kong anymore. We had no business there. Bangkok would work fine.
I located the agent just outside of the restaurant, huddled conspiratorially with three or four other passengers. They weren’t friendly to my intrusion, as seats were limited, but after a bit of finagling I arranged two tickets. The agent left and said he would be back in an hour. We would be spared.
We went to the bar and toasted our good luck. We finished a round and nervously ordered another, followed by one more. Then, the terror struck. No one had wanted to comment on what was happening, as if pronouncing the obvious would make it more real, but finally an Englishman crumbled onto the bar, clasped his hands over his face and violently cursed the agent. “That prick; he’s not coming back,” he said.
We couldn’t find him; they wouldn’t let us past security. We wondered if he had done it just for the sick fun of watching us squirm. But it didn’t matter. It all quickly became a blur.
I slumped onto a couch and oscillated back and forth between consciousnesses like a pinball. The restaurant filled up and the bright lights and clatter of dishes and conversation made it impossible to sleep. I was kicked out of the VIP lounge twice, maybe three times. Finally, I broke down and handed over my credit card. The price didn’t matter; I just wanted one of those black leather recliners. I would have given my life for it. I had been debased beyond the point of recognition.
The Jet Airways officials returned to Celebrations restaurant around six p.m. the next day. They led us, like tranquilized dogs, through a maze of security checks and luggage claims before finally shoving us onto a plane. They are, by far, the coldest, most brutal individuals, I have ever encountered. It seems unfortunate that they have chosen the airline business as their base of operations. It would be much more appropriate if they were employed as enforcers in a Gestapo. I would prefer to be waterboarded and have my genitals mangled by electric shock than ever fly their airline again.
This is the first of a number of posts I’ll be writing about my travels in Asia. Check back for more articles or read my previous posts on West Africa.
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He He He may not be the most authentic journalist, but libertarian radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller has recently injected himself into the debate on torture in support of coercive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. This morning he decided to take the plunge himself. “I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture.” he said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face….I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off’.”‘
But after six seconds, Mancow terminated the demonstration and had a change in heart. Visibly traumatized, he stammered, “I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.” Check out the video below as well as videos of three other journalists who have submitted to waterboarding.
Playboy Journalist Mike Guy was waterboarded in late April. He wagered that he could last fifteen seconds, and only lasted six.
Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens was not only waterboarded for an August 2008 article, but even had himself abducted by ex-military interrogators to recreate the process. He lasted under ten seconds and claimed that in the aftermath he suffered from paranoia and claustrophobia anytime he was out of breath.
The only journalist who appears to have fared well during waterboarding was FOX News correspondent Steve Harrigan. However, after watching the reactions of the other journalists, it’s hard to imagine his interrogators were using the same methods.
Regardless of your politics, you have to respect any journalist who submits to waterboarding. It does seem that the opinions of most these guys, excluding the FOX anchor, are pretty consistent after they experience the procedure: it’s torture, no bones about it.
The crazy thing is that all of these journalists are in controlled situations in which they can stop the procedure at any time, which means it must be 100 times more intense for those who have no control. Of course, not every journalist supporting waterboarding has stepped up to the plate.
FOX News anchor Sean Hannity–a proponent of waterboarding– said in late April that he would submit to the tactic in some sort of “charity” event. MSNBC anchor Keith Olberman has taken him to task, offering to donate $1,000 to a military charity for every second Hannity is waterboarded. Post his boast and Olberman’s challenge, Hannity has kept mum on the issue. My assumption is a Hannity waterboarding video would put the rest of these to shame. UPDATE: Olberman has withdrawn the offer to Hannity and instead paid $10,000 to a charity of Mancow’s choice.
During a 2005 debate, former Bush legal adviser John Yoo was asked: “If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, is there a law that can stop him?”
Yoo’s answer: “No treaty,” and depending on the president’s belief at the time, no law.
Will Bunch Teaches John Yoo a Lesson About Appropriate Public Discourse
For these reasons, one might think Yoo’s prospects for future employment were dim. However, his past didn’t stop the Philadelphia Inquirer – Yoo’s hometown newspaper – from hiring the controversial lawyer to write a monthly column. Yoo’s writings, published under the headline “Closing Arguments,” are primarily about law. His most recent column argued against President Obama’s assertion that he will appoint a new Supreme Court justice who uses empathy in the courtroom.
Before serving in the Bush administration, Yoo served as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His vast legal scholarship focused on U.S. foreign relations, international law and the Constitution’s separation of powers. He also wrote two books on foreign affairs and the War on Terror. Yoo even had a short stint as journalist; he spent a summer interning at The Wall Street Journal between college and law school. But for Will Bunch, a writer for The Philadelphia Daily News, Yoo’s credentials don’t make the cut for columnist material.
In a scathing blog post, Bunch harshly criticized the decision to hire Yoo. “As an American citizen, I am still reeling from the knowledge that our government tortured people in my name,” Bunch said. “As a journalist, the fact that my byline and John Yoo’s are now rolling off the same printing press is adding insult to injury.”
As a journalist and an American citizen, I couldn’t disagree more. The Philadelphia Inquirer has voiced an editorial opinion against harsh interrogation techniques; the fact that it would hire a law scholar who holds the opposite viewpoint is a testament to its commitment to promoting a marketplace of ideas. Too often, newspapers abandon rigorous discourse on the opinion page for an echo chamber of rants. Harold Jackson, the opinion editor of the Inquirer, said the paper has been adding more conservative columnists to provide ideological balance. “It means we aren’t afraid to let people hear what the other side has to say,” Jackson said. “We think most of our readers aren’t afraid, either.”
I wish Jackson was correct, but unfortunately many Americans don’t want discourse that challenges their belief structure. They’d rather write Yoo off as a sadistic yahoo and argue for his removal from the Inquirer than actually hear the basis for his political philosophy.
Bunch argues that the inclusion of Yoo in the Inquirer’s editorial page is another example of what he calls “on one hand, on the other hand journalism,” a practice in which newspapers provide equal time and authority to ideas regardless of their merits. This observation makes the grossly inaccurate assumption that Bunch or the staff of the Inquirer are the only ones qualified to pass judgment on the complexity of Yoo’s legal memos – they aren’t. However, Yoo is eminently qualified to provide a conservative interpretation of executive power and international law.
To suggest that editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer should make a moral judgment to prohibit discussions about legal issues and accordingly exclude Yoo’s voice for the paper is absurd. And to drape what is clearly an attempt in political censorship under the guise of patriotism is not only disingenuous, but a complete bastardization of what a free press is intended to provide.
Let me make this crystal clear:I don’t agree with what John Yoo has to say, but I find his opinions nowhere near as detestable as those who seek to muzzle him because he doesn’t fulfill their standard of appropriate speech. To remove Yoo would sully the history of debate that has made newspapers such a vibrant and important part of American culture. As someone who believes in the promise of journalism, I simply cannot tolerate that.
