Should civilized nations use "Enhanced Interrogation" techni

[Thecla]

Look, I'm not saying that there would not be abuse, or maltreatment at this prison. There is some level of guard on prisoner violence at most prisons as I understand it. So, this clouds the issue of what is or is not a part of the "enhanced interrogation" and what is just cruel and inhumane treatment at the hands of a person who should be answering to a court martial.

From that perspective, then, the April 2005 Schmidt report which found that

Detention and interrogation operations at Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) cover a three-year period and over 24,000 interrogations. This AR 15-6 investigation found only three interrogation acts in violation of interrogation techniques authorized by Army Field Manual 34-52 and DoD guidance.

is especially damning. If correct, the report would mean that essentially everything that went on was part of the officially authorized "enhanced interrogation" methods.

Also, your example of the judge in Spain would be the case that even unsubstantiated claims of evidence by torture, or the probability of coercion would make much of the legal evidence inadmissible.

I doubt that unsubstantiated claims of torture make legal evidence inadmissible. In this case for example, the judge tried to extradite two former Guantanamo detainees who had been returned to the UK, but dropped the request when British doctors examined the men and found that they suffered severe mental and physical effects as a result of their detention in Guantanamo and elsewhere and were not fit to stand trial. I don't particularly insist on the Spanish judge, who sounds like a somewhat controversial figure --- I only mentioned him because I thought it was ironic that his concern about torture at Guantanamo came from trying to prosecute terrorists in Spain (and certainly Spain has plenty of reason to worry about that).

As Pete said, there is a big difference between treating a conflict as "war" as opposed to building a legal case.

That difference might affect the legal status of the detainees. But the question here is whether they were tortured. As far as that's concerned, the difference is completely irrelevant.