Helping waterboarding hit home...

Instead of having an abstract debate about the U.S. government's use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique, writer Christopher Hitchens and his editor decided to go full frontal.

Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded, which if you haven't been tracking the torture debate is essentially strapping down a suspect and pouring water in his mouth to give the sensation of drowning.

Hitchens was waterboarded on video and then wrote an article about it for Vanity Fair's August issue.

It is stunning to watch such a prolific author and critic put himself through the detainee treatment, but Hitchens is clearly not shy or afraid of pain considering the fact that he was willing to get a bikini wax earlier this year for the same magazine.

Hitchens eventually admits on camera that since being waterboarded in May in North Carolina, he gets nervous sensations and nightmares - a remarkable admission considering he knew the entire time that he was going to survive the method.

Here's a quote: I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."

For the full article, click here.

To watch the video, click here.