I challenge anyone to read this article in Salon in full and to still maintain that waterboarding that the CIA used was not torture.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney "specially designed" to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner's nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

Some on here started with a position that no torture took place as it was only the "hearsay" of inmates. When the evidence became substantiated by officials, the defence changed to "what is torture'. Let's stop that meme in it's tracks.

In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

If the US thought it was a "war crime" then, it must be a war crime now.

Let's remember that Cheney thought that a "dunk in the water" was OK. Also remember that the Army Field Manual says that waterboarding is "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". Not my words, the Army Field Manual's words.

The evidence in the article is clear. Absolutely clear. It is not hearsay from "goat herders". It is the CIA's own accounts.

These acts were torture, and those who authorised, condoned and permitted the torture should be held accountable.

Will those who asked for evidence now admit that it was torture?