Forestwalker, thanks for the link with the link to the Senate report. I just read it and found the details to be consistent with what I have read in the past. I notice that this was a
joint effort between Carl Levin and John McCain.
I went through survival school in the U.S. Air Force and, as a part of that, the SERE training mentioned in the report. I went through interrogation resistance training and was subjected to extended stress positions, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and humiliation, being scrunched up in a small, dark box for twelve hours, and prison camp mistreatment. I broke out with shingles on my last day of the three week training as a result of the stress. Fortunately, they were not doing waterboarding at the time.
Kind of a revealing story about me is that during the group indoctrination sessions, during which a Communist would lecture us to get us to "see the light" about the evils of democracy, I was the only one in a group of thirty who broke the rule of not arguing with the lecturer.
I liked this blog on the question of whether waterboarding is torture:
Is Waterboarding Torture? C'mon now...
On the other hand, I am revolted by the attitude and conduct of Blagojevich and consider his kind of betrayal of the public trust a serious threat to our democracy. Both torture and corruption undermine the foundations of a civil society, and I think it right to be angered at and outspoken against both.