it is not what it is played. it is when it is played. in what manner is played. if i played loud music 24/7 for a week so loud you couldn't sleep like is reported to happen in quantanamo then it is torture. sleep depravation is torture. making a man crap himself is humilation and degrading and so is torture. stress positions are painful and so are torture. also the human rights act says all men should be allowed to practice their religion freely. for many muslims this means not to shave. forceful shaving of them and not giving them the necessary equipment to do so (water when doing the prayers, matts, the quran etc.) is not torture but is a breach of human rights.

i can choose to hang myself here and now but i wouldn't be best pleased if just because i can do it means the government can come over and do it for me. sleep depravation by creating an environment such as loud noise where you cannot sleep is torture as plainly defined. temperature control can also cause health problems.
You have really weird notions of what constitutes torture. Now if a prisoner has to shave (so as to remove lice and bugs), we're torturing him. If we don't hand them prayer rugs and korans and a proper water basin, it's against the law. Well, those "religious artifacts" are perfect places to hide weapons, which is absolutely that last thing you'd want as a guard in a prison. If the guy can't sleep at night, this is torture? This is absolute nonsense. You can't force somebody to fall asleep. I can't even force myself to fall asleep. And I'm pretty sure you'd be against tranquilizers too.

Stress positions are pretty bad, I guess. I really have no idea what this is all about. If it's possible not to do that, then we shouldn't, but I'm not sure that we can get intelligence from them without it. And unless we get the intelligence, Americans will die.

I really wish there was a better way, but I don't see one. And reallity being what it is, we need to find out where and when the next attack is. If not, more attacks will happen. That's the real world. It stinks, but that doesn't mean that you can simply deny what is going on. I don't see much fairness in asking a mother to give up her child or a child to give up her father just for a treaty. That would be quite frankly cruel. And all of this thinking of "It's the law" is to my mind asking Americans to do just that. Give up safety and please a few international lawyers. Although as stringent as international law is, I doubt that any POW camp could ever meet such standards.

And at least you have one other name other than Begg.