"Oh No, Not the Comfy Chair!"

I wrote a bit last week about Christopher Hitchens' recent trip to the waterboard and the dangerous decline in what is actually considered torture. Two stories (here, and here) lead me to believe we've fallen even further from a realistic notion of what is to be avoided than I previously thought.

In the first, we have a detainee apparently crying for his mother. My goodness. Have we really become so heartless as to make a boy cry (putting aside for a moment that he is held for having thrown a hand grenade at US troops)?

In the second (and even more laughable), a detainee complains of sexual coercion at the hands of some presumably tempting little tomato of an Inquisitor who actually touches his thigh! Ye gads! Are we no longer civilized beings? What's next? Godiva chocolates and soft music? Do we have no standards?