Some people have empathy, and some don’t. Those who do don’t have to experience a thing to know what it would feel like to the person experiencing it. Those who don’t have to do things like undergoing waterboarding themselves to come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, torture.

Christopher Hitchens, who previously felt waterboarding was merely “extreme interrogation” and not “outright torture,” has changed his tune after the briefest and cushiest waterboarding demonstration I have seen yet. He finally agrees that it is torture, and all it took was about fourteen seconds or less and maybe two cups of water for him to come to that conclusion. I suppose now he’d like everyone to fall all over themselves lauding him for — at last — coming to the right answer on whether or not waterboarding is torture. I, for one, will not. The only thing I have to say to him is “Thanks for taking so long to agree with the rest of us. Come around to being sensible more quickly next time.”

Though I do have to admit Evil Orb rather enjoyed seeing Mr. Hitchens tortured and wouldn’t have minded at all had they gone just a few seconds beyond when he freaked out. Though the poor dear is having nightmares and panic attacks after his brief brush with this particular technique, so I can only imagine the mental damage that might have occurred if he’d thought the people trying to drown him actually meant to do him harm, as it would be in an actual session of “extreme interrogation.”