It's torture, torture, torture!

The White House can proclaim as much as it likes, as it did earlier today, that detainees were not tortured and treated "humanely" - but the evidence points totally the opposite way.

CNN.com reports on a report by a well regarded group of medicos who examined detainees, never charged with anything, post their release by US authorities:

"Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States were tortured, according to medical examinations detailed in a report released Wednesday by a human rights group.

The Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.

The detainees were never charged with crimes.

"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse often causing lasting suffering," said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.

The doctors' group said in a 121-page report that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003.

"There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes," Taguba states. "The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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