I would like to add a small element of purely anecdotal evidence to this debate as an avid follower of the “warblogs” and discussions at the time which is slightly different from the “he was pro torture before he was against it” take in your post. My general understanding is that Hitchens was always against “torture” (disagree with Nance’s take on this) but there was both a legal and moral debate about water boarding qualifying as torture. For example see this NPR story from 2014: https://www.npr.org/2014/01/07/260155065/cia-lawyer-waterboarding-wasnt-torture-then-and-isnt-torture-now
Hitchens decided to answer the question for himself and came firmly down on the “it is torture and therefore wrong” side of the debate afterwards. He was initially wrong but continued to be intellectually consistent throughout.
Was this post significantly edited? Because this seems to be exactly the take in the post from the start:
because he thought it wasn’t bad enough to be considered torture. Then he had it tried on himself, and changed his mind, coming to believe it is torture and should not be performed.
to the end
This is supported by Malcom’s claim that Hitchens was “a proponent of torture”, which is clearly false going by Christopher’s public articles on the subject. The question is only over whether Hitchens considered waterboarding to be a form of torture, and therefore permissible or not, which Malcolm seems to have not understood.
I would like to add a small element of purely anecdotal evidence to this debate as an avid follower of the “warblogs” and discussions at the time which is slightly different from the “he was pro torture before he was against it” take in your post. My general understanding is that Hitchens was always against “torture” (disagree with Nance’s take on this) but there was both a legal and moral debate about water boarding qualifying as torture. For example see this NPR story from 2014: https://www.npr.org/2014/01/07/260155065/cia-lawyer-waterboarding-wasnt-torture-then-and-isnt-torture-now
Hitchens decided to answer the question for himself and came firmly down on the “it is torture and therefore wrong” side of the debate afterwards. He was initially wrong but continued to be intellectually consistent throughout.
This matches my memory as well.
And mine.
Was this post significantly edited? Because this seems to be exactly the take in the post from the start:
to the end