The most severe form of interrogation our side has used is waterboarding, which has been used on a grand total of three people a few years ago. The most serious thing most Gitmo detainees have to worry about is gaining weight.

This is from the legal complaint of Fox and others:

As will subsequently be specified in this Complaint, the torture varied for each of the POW Plaintiffs, but the overall torture of American POWs by officials of the Republic of Iraq included severe beatings with pistols and rifles, weighted rubber hoses, truncheons, blackjacks, fists, belts, metal pipes, batons, and sticks, including an axe handle. It further included mock executions; threatened castration; threatened amputation of fingers and other dismemberment; threatened death; threats to send their body parts to their families in the United States; systematic starvation; systematic exposure to freezing cold; deprivation of medical care; purposeful aggravation of existing injuries; electrical shock with a device wrapped around a POW’s head; injection of a mind altering substance; kicking, including with steel-toed boots; cupped hand blows to the ears; beating with a mallet on the knees; handcuffs and restraints so tight as to cut off circulation, damage nerves, and cause the hands to swell and turn purple; use of cattle prods and stun guns; being knocked unconscious, sometimes repeatedly; blows to the legs and neck with a heavy pendulum-like object; whipping with a cat-o’-nine-tails; confinement in darkness; confinement in filthy conditions exposing them to contagion and infection; burning with cigarettes and heated spoons; being led blindfolded into walls and stairwells; being urinated and spat upon; mental suffering about the agony that their families must be enduring when the POWs were not permitted by the Iraqi authorities to inform their families that they were alive; living in constant fear of death and torture, a climate intended to create humiliation and degradation; and other atrocities causing great suffering and serious injury in clear violation of the internationally accepted obligations of the Government of Iraq.

Injuries and illnesses sustained during this torture by American POWs generally included a fractured skull, broken bones, including a broken leg and broken vertebrae, broken tibia, broken facial structure, burns, torn muscles, chipped teeth, broken noses, a dislocated jaw, a dislocated shoulder, a torn rotator cuff, perforated eardrums, injuries to knees so severe as to cause lameness, painful joints, injury to kidneys, numbness and nerve damage, hearing impairment, impairment of the sense of smell, infections including eye infection, dysentery, nausea, severe weight loss, massive bruises (in one case so severe and extensive that the bruising was described "as if the body had been dipped in indigo ink"), and other injuries. In at least one case, a POW Plaintiff was so severely starved he ate the scabs off his own body. Pain and suffering of the POWs during this torture and their mental suffering and anguish resulting during their period of confinement by Iraq were intense and extreme. The effects of this brutal treatment by Defendants have continued in years since.

The POWs suffered not only unspeakable and prolonged physical pain but also intense and prolonged mental anguish and harm, both during the actual infliction of torture and throughout their captivity. They lived constantly in terror of further torture of the type their captors had already inflicted upon them, new and unknown tortures, and the fear of death and dismemberment repeatedly threatened by their captors. They heard fellow prisoners’ anguished cries during beatings, sometimes even recognizing the victims’ voices. Hearing the terrorizing beatings gave the POWs a vivid preview of what they and their fellow POWs could expect and greatly contributed to their anguish. Even the sound of the jailers’ keys filled them with fear. Iraq’s forcing of video "confessions" for propaganda purposes not only generated fear and anguish during the torture compelling these propaganda "confessions," but it also generated tremendous guilt about any acquiescence to their captors’ demands. The POWs also suffered intense and prolonged mental anguish because of the suffering of their family members and the effects upon their family relationships resulting from their torture by Iraq. Among other things, POWs and their family members suffered prolonged mental anguish and harm from Iraq’s intentional and total failure to comply with its obligations designed to provide rapid notification to family members of a detained POW. Some POW Plaintiffs have also suffered professional set-backs and economic damages as a result of Iraq’s tortious actions.

Fox, among other injuries, lost 25 pounds in 15 days.

This treatment was done not to enemy combatants in civilian clothes who violate every written and unwritten law of war. Such people used to be simply shot in former wars, not just detained. This was done to uniformed official military personnel, at war in compliance with the laws of war and the Geneva conventions. That may be neither here nor there, but I thought it should be mentioned. It isn't just Iraq, either. This is pretty much how our captured uniformed troops have been treated in every war or conflict since the end of WWII.

You and others can continue to try to annihilate the concept of "torture" to make your political points. I don't think you're kidding anyone.