A report of a process of torture:
In 2001, Ali Afshari was arrested for his work as a student leader. He said he was held in solitary confinement for 335 days and resisted confessing for the first two months. But after two mock executions and a five-day stretch where his interrogators would not let him sleep, he said he eventually caved in. “They tortured me, some beatings, sleep deprivation, insults, psychological torture, standing me for several hours in front of a wall, keeping me in solitary confinement for one year,” Mr. Afshari said in an interview from his home in Washington. “They eventually broke my resistance.”
The problem, he said, was that he was not sure what he was supposed to confess to.
Cheney or Khamenei? The only difference is the reason for the arrest. But remember that the reason for arresting all those in US custody during the torture years was mere suspicion of terrorism. There was no due process. You will also note, as Glenn Greenwald notes, that the NYT uses the word "torture" to describe some of this, which did not include waterboarding. The New York Times' policy is that if foreign governments use these techniques, they're torture. If Bush-Cheney used them and worse, they're "enhanced interrogation." The NYT's concern that their reputation and sources should always remain ahead of publishing the truth and using the English language - gets clearer and clearer.