A question about water boarding in popular culture:

[hedgehog]

From what I gather, Chinese and/or North Koreans water boarded American POWs to force them into making false confessions. I had never heard this before the discussion of why some American military personnel are water boarded as part of their training.

I was a born in the mid-50's. When I was a kid, we had a legend of "Chinese water torture" which consisted of strapping the victim in a chair and slowly driving him mad by slowly dripping water on his head. So my question is, is this how popular culture interpreted vague descriptions of water boarding?

[lame54]

1. at least that name has the word torture in it

[hedgehog]

2. It was weird being at the tail end of the baby boom. We grew up in the shadow

of WWII without knowing what it had really been about. Back in grammar school , the real smart asses would strut their stuff by drawing swastikas on the bus windows. We all knew that was bad, but we had no idea what it meant.

[EFerrari]

3. Yes, much as most people today think "waterboarding" is just pouring water

on your face.

[ThirdWorldJohn]

4. I think I even saw a 50s B war movie that showed the drip torture but it is all BS. Wiki has an.....

article about it and how Myth Busters debunked it as torture.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture

[Ezlivin]

5. Our soldiers supervised waterboarding of the NVC

A U.S. soldier in Vietnam supervises the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier.

[underpants]

7. I don't mean this as an excuse but...

the only practical application that I could come up with (from what I have read) for torture is to scare the crap out of a local population-like in many Vietnam settings. Basically you either let the locals know that you are to be a feared as the existing "king of the hill" or you do it to the former "king" or one of his subordinates to let the locals know WHO is in charge and that you mean business.

:shrug:

I asked a SF guy I happen to know about this- he didn't say that they had done it (they had other means of finding high interest people in caves ;-) ) but he said that that is the only reason that he would have his guys do something like that. But that is not the normal SF way-they tend to just make contact and collect info from the local existing "kings"

[Ezlivin]

9. What can you do?

When I saw this picture I was surprised. The Vietnam-era vets that I knew never mentioned waterboarding, so I never knew it was done during the Vietnam War.

I'm sure that many things our soldiers have done would come as a surprise. (And I'm a veteran.)

I agree with you: Your explanation is the only way I can see to "justify" this. I guess in an ideal world we would never consider stooping to this level to achieve our goals.

[underpants]

6. I have to admit that I had not made the connection with "Chinese water torture" until I read this

I knew about it (born in '67) but I had heard of it.

That may very well be what they were talking about.

[backscatter712]

8. Mythbusters actually tested the Chinese Water Torture myth.

And they concluded that it was plausible.

They built a table with restraints to hold a person down while water was dripped on her head.

Kari Byron didn't last very long when they went all-out - using all the restraints and the dripping water - being restrained like that will cause almost anyone to freak out.

Granted, it's not the same as waterboarding, but it's no picnic either.

[ashling]

10. Our troops did it to Fillipinos in 1900

They called it "The Water Cure"