Former MMA fighter and Green Beret Tim Kennedy wasn’t joking around when he said waterboarding isn’t torture.
The legendary special forces sniper caused an uproar last week when he tried to end the debate on waterboarding.
“Waterboarding is not torture,” he tweeted.
Waterboarding is not torture.
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) May 10, 2018
“In exchange for cooking my best friend elk tacos he is going to Waterboard me for an hour while we live stream,” he went on. “Put it on your calendars Friday 5 PM central time.”
In exchange for cooking my best friend elk tacos he is going to Waterboard me for an hour while we live stream. Put it on your calendars Friday 5 PM central time.
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) May 10, 2018
Because he’s a man of his word, he did just that.
“We did this yesterday for almost 45 minutes,” he explained on Twitter on Saturday. “The average pour was anywhere from 10 to 60 sec. You can try to hold your breath but the water pools at the back of your sinuses running down your eyes and nose. Plain and simple. It’s not torture.”
We did this yesterday for almost 45 minutes. The average pour was anywhere from 10 to 60 sec. You can try to hold your breath but the water pools at the back of your sinuses running down your eyes and nose. Plain and simple. It’s not torture. #CIA #GinaHaspel #waterboarding pic.twitter.com/XtFLYoUgsw
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) May 12, 2018
Kennedy has received considerable attention for his demo. Everywhere from TMZ, Barstool Sports, Fox News, The Hill and The Independent have covered his now-viral livestream. The video has received over 3 million views since it was first posted on Saturday. He had one word for the reaction after the video went viral: polarizing.
Speaking exclusively to The Daily Caller, Tim Kennedy explained why waterboarding breaks a terrorist and not a trained special forces operator.
“The point of doing it was trying to force a conversation,” he explained. “And trying to bring awareness to something that I’m really familiar with — we’ve been at war for 17 years and I’ve been in the special forces for 15 years. And the conversation has been, unfortunately, perceived as negative.”
Asked what he would tell the most anti-waterboarding people in the world, Kennedy had some choice words.
“I’m against torture. I’m also against terrorism. I think what no one understands is that the reason that waterboarding was effective was because of who we were waterboarding.”
“If you waterboard me, if you strapped me down, and you poured or electrocuted me — you could do anything to me — I am so in control because I am not a horrible human,” he stated. “I know what I’m doing, and I believe in what I’m doing.”
“These people are cowards. They’re bullies. They only prey upon the innocent. They only prey upon the weak. And when they lose control, they lose everything. They lose their ability to cognitively think. They lose control of what they’re supposed to be talking about and what they’re not supposed to be talking about.”
Kennedy added that “the hardest part is trying to convince somebody that totally disagrees with me on what waterboarding is, about the person that’s sitting on that board. And there’s a huge difference between me and them. You could waterboard me for days — for years — and I would still be cracking jokes about how bad Rachel Maddow is.”
It’s probably safe to say that Kennedy, a special forces veteran of 15 years, is one of the most knowledgeable experts on waterboarding around, and this explanation probably won’t make many terrorists — or obstructionist Senators — too happy.
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