Jonah: All right, I have checked out those reports your reader sent, and

remain deeply unmoved.

” saw a detainee sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli

flag draped around him, loud music being played and a strobe flashing.”

This is TORTURE? For heaven’s sake!

I notice, too, the mention of someone having “placed lighted cigarettes in

detainees’ ears.” Now, a post or two ago, Jonah, one of your readers said:

“…Not to mention cigarettes extinguished in ear canals…”

Without having read *all* those reports, I can’t help wondering whether the

first cigarette-in-ear story hasn’t mysteriously morphed into the second.

And I’d really like to know WHICH END OF THE CIGARETTE WENT IN THE

PRISONER’S EAR. If, as that first reader implied, it was the burning end

(intention: infliction of pain & possibly hearing loss) that is one thing.

If, on the other hand, it was the unlit end (intention: at minimum, to make

the prisoner feel silly, at maximum, to make him afraid you would let the

thing burn right down), that’s another.

It seems absurd to pick at minutiae like this, but we’re talking about

drawing lines. And from what I’ve seen here, there is some shifty sleight

of hand going on by the angry-about-torture crowd.