I would argue that the suspension of a person's civil liberties by "workers" at the CIA or any other heavy-handed organization that utilizes torture, as a means of conducting "interrogations," constitutes a sexual assault and could be defined as being rape. Certainly, no one seems to have any compunction about allowing prisoners, in the US or in other countries, to potentially be subjected to rape, but I think that any drastic and unwarranted imposition of control over a person's surroundings constitutes rape, and I think this is particularly likely to be the case when the control is imposed through the use of systematic, physical violence. Everyone is aware of the methods that "government-type" people discuss very openly and casually, and these methods include the use of "simulated" drowning and other physical assaults of various kinds. The "milder" examples of these physical assaults, such as sleep deprivation or sensory deprivation and isolation or whatever, are discussed routinely in the popular press, but I wonder, given the deplorable history of the apparent use of extreme forms of violence by CIA-style organizations, if these are really the only methods used by CIA-style "interrogators" or "officials" or whatever they are. However, a person who is being detained, without having been charged with a crime and without any knowledge of the expected duration of the detention, is being controlled in an absolute way, and the person can have no real hope of ever having access to the things, such as human interaction and the expectation of being treated in something resembling a fair or decent manner, that everyone knows a human being is incapable of living, in any real sense, without. In my view, it's this absolute contempt for the rights of a "detainee" that, in concert with ongoing physical assaults that the person can never have any hope of ending through his or her actions or statements, causes CIA-style torture methods to constitute rape. Another reason I think systematic torture is rape is that the psychological effects of CIA-style interrogations are known to be devastating. Rape is regarded as being an especially egregious form of violence because, in part, of the way in which rape victims remain terrorized for long periods of time after they have been attacked.
I'm not sure why anyone would want his or her government shuttling people away to secret prisons, in foreign countries, to be subjected to systematic and institutionalized rape, but I would think people would not want this approach to be occurring. It's easy to say that the detainees are terrorists or "foreigners" or whatever the hell type of epithet one wants to use to label the detainees. However, there is a devastatingly-destructive effect on the fabric of a society whenever any person, in the US or other country, is subjected to this type of treatment. Other people have made the point that one defines one's standards of conduct, in a moral or ethical or whatever sense, by the range, meaning the nature of the extremes, of one's actions, and even the level of violence that a lot of these stories, in the popular press, describe is so obscene and appalling as to, essentially, shatter the confidence that one might otherwise have, in a world in which people can be expected to act with some decency. In my view, the discussions in the popular press may be the tip of the iceberg, and the whole discussion of this issue, among people, has become so ugly and devoid of humanity that I doubt anyone would even care if the folks blabbed openly and explicitly, on the Sunday talk shows, about the literal rape of detainees in secret prisons, etc. For whatever reason, many people seem to have accepted the notion that people in government offices have the right to make "big decisions" or "tough decisions" and, after an afternoon or lunch hour of careful deliberation in a big room with fancy walls or whatever, send human beings off to be dehumanized and assaulted in extreme ways that are nearly indistinguishable from rape. No one should have the right to make that kind of decision, in my view. It's a weak-minded set of individuals that have to rely on physical violence to assert their supposed authority over others, and, in my opinion, a person who condones the use of torture, for any purpose, should be ashamed of himself or herself.
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