well, pan, this is probably not going to read the way it would sound if we were having a conversation face to face--i dont know if there's anything to be done about it--but i've done alot of work over the years on the history of torture in the west, its legal and ethical problems. so this isn't a question that i approach particularly lightly, nor is it something that i have casual opinions about--i could trot out credentials if you want, but that seems stupid--so to my mind, there really is not much in the way of ambiguity about what is and is not torture--and posing questions about where it stops and starts is problematic.
i don't really know what to say beyond this--it is simply not the case that every conversation about every topic is the same as every other and that your or anyone else's simple opinion on the matter is just hunky dory because it's just your opinion.
here's why: in the question of torture, if you think about it, you get straight into problems of aestheticizing the deliberate, pre-meditated inflicting of often appalling levels of pain on another person--the kind of thing that leaves people damaged physically and mentally, often for life--have you read about what these practices do to people?
http://www.globalexchange.org/countr...xico/4470.html
http://www.subliminal.org/tibet/test...-Congress.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4865
it doesn't matter who does this, it is fucking wrong: pure and simple wrong.
and given the level of damage on the victims--and often on the interrogators as well if they maintain a degree of attachment to being-civilized as a function of these actions--attempt to limit the definition of torture end up being suspect.
then there is an ethical problem that playing around with something like this as a little thought experiment raise for the ones who do them.
this is an ugly ugly area of human activity.
it gets worse the more you know about it---and that from a viewpoint of reading--god only knows what the consequences of this kind of barbarism would be on you or i or anyone here if they endured it themselves.
there are some areas where a broad prohibition on a set of practices is a good thing, so much so that it really doesn't matter if it goes further than a draconian interpretation of the category might lead you to think necessary.
this is some foul shit. i dont know why you'd want to see more of it. i really dont.