Torture it is

What Dick Cheney is defending:

"A former prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay says he was never interrogated about the reason the US said they’d arrested him for — even after seven years in captivity. He also provided a graphic account of new elements of what may be considered “ad-lib” torture — guards inappropriately using hypodermic needles and IV tubes intended for forced feeding during hunger

<snip>

The former detainee, Lakhdar Boumediene, is now in France with his family. He was never charged. Was it torture? an ABC News reporter asked.

“I don’t think. I’m sure,” he replied.

“Boumediene described being pulled up from under his arms while sitting in a chair with his legs shackled, stretching him,” an ABC News interview account Monday reported. “He said that he was forced to run with the camp’s guards and if he could not keep up, he was dragged, bloody and bruised.

“He described what he called the ‘games’ the guards would play after he began a hunger strike, putting his food IV up his nose and poking the hypodermic needle in the wrong part of his arm.

“You think that’s not torture?” he quipped. “What’s this? What can you call this? Torture or what?” he said, indicating the scars he bears from tight shackles. ‘I’m an animal? I’m not a human?’”

For shame that anyone has to ask if this is torture. We really have lost all moral high ground. We held this man for 7 years without charge and tortured him. How are we different from North Korea?