Confusing the torture debate

Neil the Werewolf, guest-blogging at Ezra Klein's, hits the nail on the head, as usual:

The first thing I want to do is point out the way that people on the right are confusing the torture debate. They pick up on random things happening at Guantanamo that aren't instances of torture by themselves, and claim that no torture is going on because, hey, feeding people chicken isn't torture! ... the problem isn't that we sometimes played Christina Aguilera in prisoners' cells instead of, say, Sleater-Kinney ... the problem isn't that we exposed the prisoners to heat over 100 degrees. Captain Ed, you aren't even responding to anybody when you say:

If that means they get cold, or hot, or have little accidents on the floor, then so be it. That isn't torture or even abuse.

"Confusing the torture debate" is, of course, the whole point. We need to focus on the real allegations of abuse, not stupid shit about Christina Aguilera, and we need to stop allowing the discussion about these abuses to get turned into a debate on whether or not Gitmo is worse than Auschwitz.