Posted by
Ed Lilly on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:05:11 AM
Skimming through the "Muse Arts" page at Bloomberg this morning, I came across what I thought was going to be a story about a Coney Island attraction where people could line up and pay $1 to be waterboarded for fun.
Here's the link text:
Waterboarding for a Buck Adds Twist to Coney Island Thrills: Jeremy Gerard
It turns out you can't actually get waterboarded for a buck to add a twist to your Coney Island thrills, as we'll see:
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- I wasn't prepared to be devastated by
the lurching, blindfolded figure in an orange jumpsuit, gasping
for air as a hooded man in black poured water down his mouth.
"Waterboard Thrill Ride," Steve Powers's installation, is
disturbing in a way that journalistic accounts of torture can
only approximate. It left me wrecked.
True, I wasn't there by accident (unlike, say, nameless
others further south in the lovely seaside resort of Guantanamo
Bay). I'd actually come to see a man being tortured.
Let's get this out of the way first. It's a good thing the "nameless others" remain nameless, because my guess is none of the clowns down there enjoying the warm weather, free Korans, and three meals a day are there by accident. Go ahead, Mr. Gerard, name ONE of them who is. I won't hold my breath.
Now, it still seems from the setup that there is at least going to be a real person being waterboarded, and maybe even a dollar-paying customer who gets to experience it first hand! Um, no:
I watched the two figures,
motionless dummies until I inserted a dollar bill into a slot
next to the bars. That's when the water flowed and the prone body
lurched.
Motionless dummies? There are no real people? That's right:
The figures in the "Waterboard Thrill Ride" aren't alive. They're "crummy animatronic robots," Powers told me in a
telephone interview, and any doubt about the point of his show is
dispensed with by the cartoon on the gray storefront. A sinister
blue man is getting ready to pour water on SpongeBob SquarePants,
who is saying "It doesn't GITMO better!" a reference to the
practice of waterboarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. SpongeBob
is grinning like it's, you know, a day at the beach.
Again, let's deal with this first - "the practice of waterboarding prisoners"? Using the word "practice" kind of makes it sound like it goes on all the time. But does it? Did it? Well,
according to ABC News [
updated to add link], only 3 of the scumbags at Gitmo were waterboarded. Not much of a practice, but at least a technique to try to get necessary information out of some pretty bad dudes.
Moving on, the upshot of the piece is that you can pay a dollar and watch two "crummy animatronic robots" in a fake waterboarding scene.
Let's remember that waterboarding, while not something I want to have done on me, and not something I would try with my kids, is basically a way to scare the crap out of really bad guys in order to break them down and get information out of them. They aren't really being drowned.
I think Mr. Gerard and I would have different answers to the question, "Which is worse, waterboarding illegal enemy combatant terrorists who may have critical information that would help save innocent lives, or setting up a fake waterboarding session in order to make a few bucks and add a thrill to tourists' Coney Island experience?"