The "harsh method" that dare not speak its name: The May 13 article, headlined "Harsh CIA Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogation," described "coercive interrogation methods" endorsed by the CIA and the Justice Department, including hooding, food and light deprivation, withholding medications, and "a technique known as 'water boarding,' in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown." The article took pains to explain why, according to U.S. officials, such techniques do not constitute torture...The article seemed to accept that the techniques described are something other than torture: "The tactics simulate torture, but officials say they are supposed to stop short of serious injury." The implication is that only interrogation methods that cause serious physical harm would be real and not simulated torture. The article quoted no one who said that the CIA methods described were, in fact, torture. Yet it would have been easy to find human rights experts who would describe them as such. The website of Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) reports that "the prohibition against torture under international law applies to many measures," including "near drowning through submersion in water." Amnesty International U.S.A. (www.amnestyusa.org) names "submersion into water almost to the point of suffocation" as a form of torture, and emphasizes that torture "can be psychological, including threats, deceit, humiliation, insults, sleep deprivation, blindfolding, isolation, mock executions...and the withholding of medication or personal items."