So two legs of the stool are fixed: They tormented a clerk. But there is a third leg that should not be left out. No one can pass unscathed through an ordeal like this. Abu Zubaydah paid with his mind.

Partly as a result of injuries he suffered while he was fighting the communists in Afghanistan, partly as a result of how those injuries were exacerbated by the CIA and partly as a result of his extended isolation, Abu Zubaydah’s mental grasp is slipping away.