What is the definition of torture? Do you have to break bones or leave bruises? What about psychological torture? Is sleep deprivation torture? What about sensory deprivation, such as loud music or 24 hours of darkness?

The Pakistan intelligence service interrogates prisoners like this:
1. Prisoner is kept awake for 72 hours.
2. Pliers are used to pull out a tooth.
3. They ask you questions.

So how far is too far? During my time in the military I was subjected to a mock SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape) training exercise. I was hung upside down naked and sprayed with cold water. It was 40 degrees outside. I was able to hold out for about 15 minutes. I laughed afterward, but I also knew that I was not going to be killed. If you ask me, I went through more “torture” than the prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003; but again, I knew my captors were not going to kill me.

So let’s talk about waterboarding. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that gives the prisoner the sensation of drowning while being very hard, if not impossible, to actually drown. It works like this:
1. The prisoner is strapped to a table, completely immobilized.
2. A shirt or some other thin piece of material is placed over the prisoner’s face. Ideally, the material will be dark in color so that the prisoner can not see and does not know what is happening until the last second.
3. Water is poured onto the prisoner’s face. The material keeps most of the water out of the prisoner’s lungs, but lets enough water into the prisoner’s mouth and nose to induce uncontrollable coughing, which gives the prisoner the sensation of drowning.
4. The material is removed every 10-15 seconds to see if the prisoner is ready to cooperate.

If this process is continued too long the prisoner will die from oxygen deprivation, but it is very rare that the prisoner can hold out for more than 30 seconds before confessing. Accidental death is extremely unusual.

The question asked is always the same: “Is the confession reliable?” With the proper application of an ice pick and a blow torch, I will confess to being the third gunman on the grassy knoll. Just in case you are wondering, it wasn’t me, but that’s my point. How do you know you are getting reliable information when you cause a human being pain? It’s simple—don’t cause the prisoner any pain that you are not experiencing yourself.

Shortly after the Abu Ghraib disaster, the CIA had to come up with another way of extracting information from prisoners that was not considered torture. The answer was “monstering,” which allows you to verbally interrogate a prisoner for as long as you want, but if the prisoner is uncomfortable then you, too, have to be uncomfortable. If the prisoner is not allowed to eat or sleep then neither can you. Surprisingly enough, the technique seems to work. The only complaint is that now instead of getting the information in 30 seconds, it might take four days. A lot can happen in four days.