Real torture

The waterboarding-as-torture meme and subsequent political "debate" is piffle. Real torture is mutilation: burning, cutting, breaking. Practiced by all races and all cultures for all of history.

Start with the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet: burn them until the nerves die. Cut genitals. Break bones. The Comanches liked to remove eyelids and stake the victim facing the rising sun. Waterboarding, or simulated drowning, is frightening, I’m sure. But real torture means permanent damage.