Torture: Properly Defined

These are the monstrous barbarities our jihadist enemies engage in. 

Note the eerie silence from leftist corners about this matter.  This reminds me of an exchange with a peacenick I had a few months ago.  Here is a snippet:

>> “well, your torture is worse than ours because it leaves physical
>> marks” is absolutely ridiculous and counter-productive
 

 That was not my argument. I was drawing a distinction between things
 that are clearly cases of torture (e.g., killing someone by chopping
 their head off) and other things which are merely coercive tactics
 (e.g., playing loud music, waterboarding). By labeling all of these
 examples as “torture” you minimize the ability to make this crucial
 and very real distinction. I strongly suspect that the Left and many
 Democrats are in favor of muddling the distinction because it makes it
 easier to smear their political opponents.

>> The politics of torture, which you support,
 

 Aha! You are partaking in the smear tactic I just referenced.

>> Are we still different enough if we torture? Unfortunately, I don’t
>> think so
 

 So your position is that the following two things are morally equivalent:
 • interrogating unlawful enemy combatants by coercive means such as
 sleep deprivation and waterboarding to save innocent lives
 • murdering
 by barbaric means innocent women and children to establish an Islamic
 theocracy

 I don’t think that is a reasonable position.
 

>> That you are willing to inflict suffering, that you are willing to
>> pre-authorize (and retroactively authorize) the government to do such
>> things to *defenseless prisoners*
 

 Among your “defenseless prisoners” are known monsters like these
 terrorists
 http://www.dni.gov/announcements/content/DetaineeBiographies.pdf

>> is extremely telling of how weak your principles are
 

 Please articulate the principle you think that I am violating.

 I think your answer to the following hypothetical situation will do
 much to clarify *your principles*. If you captured a terrorist that
 was known to have planted a dirty bomb in New York City which was
 capable of killing a 100,000 people and the terrorist refused to tell
 you the exact location of the bomb so that you could defuse it, would
 you use coercive tactics like waterboarding to extract this information?

I never heard back from the person after I asked them this hypothetical question.