Originally Posted by loquitur

A pretty good definition might be that torture is what we would think totally outrageous and uncivilized if someone else did it to an American prisoner. It's still a bit mushy as a definition, but it has the merit of applying the Golden Rule, which isn't a bad way to think about questions like this one.

MM, I sympathize with what your'e saying but the Geneva Conventions aren't definitive about the details. If they were, there wouldn't be any discussion here.