Mohamed Farag Bashmilah tells his story at the Huffington Post. He was never told why he was picked up and detained for almost three years:

During my detention, I agonized constantly about my family back in Yemen, knowing they had no idea where I was. They never once received information about who had taken me, why I was taken, or even whether I was alive. They were never contacted by the U.S. government or the International Committee of the Red Cross. My mother and wife were in such anguish that they had to be hospitalized for illness, stress, and anxiety. My father passed away while I was disappeared and I am still distraught thinking that he died without knowing whether I was dead or alive. I continue to suffer from bouts of illness that medical doctors attribute to the treatment I experienced in the “black sites.” My physical symptoms are made worse by the anxiety caused by never knowing where I was held, and not having any form of acknowledgment that I was disappeared and tortured by the U.S. government.

Torture is not some academic thing discussed on talk shows, with hairsplitting over how many buckets of water are needed to turn a moonlight swim into body surfing. Those who participate in such discussions deny truth, to themselves and to others.

Torture is the brutal destruction of humanity and a violation of all that is holy, if, indeed, anything is holy.

For the folks who made this–and similar things–happen (and you know they did–the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt), torture is not an instrument of anything; torture is their pornography.

They are shameless. We should be shame-full, for they bring shame on us all.

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