Wot, No Waterboarding?

It's stuff like this that drives me into an unhappy position of being a reluctant apologist for the odious Iranian regime:

British sailors and marines held for nearly two weeks in Iran were blindfolded, bound and threatened with prison if they did not say they had strayed into Iranian waters, a Royal Navy lieutenant who was among the capitives said Friday.

Lt. Felix Carman, safely home with his 14 colleagues, said the crew faced harsh interrogation by their Iranian captors and slept in stone cells on piles of blankets. Unable to see and kept isolated, they heard weapons cocking.

"We were blindfolded, our hands were bound and we were forced up against a wall. Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure," Carman said. "All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options. If we admitted that we'd strayed, we'd be on a plane to (Britain) pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison."

I would love to be outraged by such treatment of captives. It was unnecessary ill-treatment motivated simply by the desire of their captors to work off some macho by playing silly buggers.

But then I think: what, no waterboarding, no sensory deprivation, no snarling dogs and human pyramids, no electrodes, no massive beatings that break bones, no locked away from humanity for life whether guilty or innocent?

Because like it or not, that's the standard by which all odious regimes are now judged.