Obscene

There was top-down quality control, and such a set routine that you get to the point where you know what each detainee is going to say, because you’ve heard it before. It was almost automated. People were utterly dehumanized. People fell apart. It was the intentional and systematic infliction of great suffering masquerading as a legal process. It is just chilling.'"
....
Sleep deprivation has been recognized as an effective form of coercion since the Middle Ages, when it was called tormentum insomniae. It was also recognized for decades in the United States as an illegal form of torture.
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Under President Bush’s new executive order, C.I.A. detainees must receive the “basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care.” Sleep, according to the order, is not among the basic necessities.

My emphasis.

Go read all of this post by Digby. It's nothing a thinking person doesn't already know or suspect, but it still makes me cringe. How do I stop this? How do I say to the evildoer Bu$hCo that he cannot do torture in my name, in my country's name? The bastard is dehumanizing all of us. Digby's post references this article in The New Yorker.

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