That, of course, depends on how you interpret the phrase "the infliction of intense pain", but, OK, have it your way. Don't call waterboarding or bringing subjects to the brink of hypothermia "torture", even if the rest of the world does.
How do you feel about the other actions I've already described and documented? Can you also justify that? How do you think the friends and families of people who have been killed while in US custody feel about the USA? We're supposed to be about the business of eradicating cockroaches, not creating more cockroaches.
This so called "war on terror" is creating more terrorists, just as the so called "war on poverty" is creating more poverty, and the so called "war on drugs" is creating more drug problems. All three ideas are insane, unworkable, and ineffective.
How about inflicting what the subject perceives as torture, then throwing said subject, who may be a petty thief, a street thug, or simply a refugee from all of the violence, into a cell with a real Islamic fanatic? We've already seen the results of that, now haven't we?
