Real Life Torture Experiments

What is the best way to determine if something is torture?

Apparently for a couple of dimwit brothers over at the Democratic Underground, it is to repeatedly expose yourself to it so as to be able to make an accurate assessment.

Now, these brave dudes weren't pulling out finger nails one by one or using cattle prods on each other's genitalia--which, I have to be honest, would have stopped my own torture experimentation dead in its infancy. Nope, the torture in question is waterboarding. And, after several harrowing runs, the results are official:

My brother tried it a few more times than I did. He beat me on average times, but his highest was 18 seconds.

I would say that if somebody was repeatedly waterboarded it would not take a whole helluva lot to break them. Immediately a person feels panicked, and that's without the additional fear of thinking that their captors are actually trying to murder them. It's a pretty harrowing ordeal for the time that you are being subjected to it.

It's definitely torture. And if anybody doesn't believe it, then they should try it themselves. According to an ABC news report CIA officers who subject themselves to it only last an average of 14 seconds. And those are people who are trained to withstand different types of torture.

I'm waiting to see if these two door knobs will be getting back to us soon to report on whether or not smashing a hand with a hammer is torture. To volunteer again and again and again for that long, lonely walk into the torture chamber means either they struggle with sentience or their definition of torture is inaccurate. Perhaps both.

n/t to wizbang