You left out the best part of that quote, which is part of that last sentence: "however they did amount "to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", whic

You left out the best part of that quote, which is part of that last sentence: "however they did amount "to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", which is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, article 3.[17]" Even if the government didn't "torture" him (using your definitions), it's tarnish on the luster of American exceptionalism to condone this sort of behavior, regardless of it's broader classification. This is to say nothing of the hypocrisy in relying on a 1978 definition of torture, for evaluation of actions taken 30+ years later. By the same token, your "corporal punishment in school" example was legal then, but is no longer legal now. Should we go back to our 1978 laws to decide how we manage our children? If we shouldn't, then we shouldn't allow terrible (and useless [1]) degradation of fellow humans to occur at our behest. [1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11948-004-0011-y http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11948-004-0011-y By the way, I would venture to say that we are both officially "lawyering" at this point. :)