I remember a Luis Buuel movie back in the 70s that was surreal (duh) and strange, but AFTER I saw it my thought was he was making a point about torture. People were tortured in REALLY strange ways, but for absolutely no reason. But is there a good reason? I think he was saying reason or no reason, it is still what it is. Maybe (you never know with Luis Buuel, or at least I never do for sure).

Now, the CIA thought it had good reason to waterboard these honchos. However, as Charles mentions, the Vietcong waterboarded Americans. I’ll bet you the Vietcong thought they had good reason.

I still feel that the CIA did the right thing, but it is a choice - you can’t just say “no it is not torture, because we had a good reason.”