It's not torture because they don't count

In response to the Red Cross's statement that the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo is tantamount to torture, "'We certainly don't think it's torture', Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience in Indianapolis a short time later. 'Let's not forget the kind of people we have down there', he added. 'These are the people that don't know any moral values'".

So it's not torture because the prisoners are terrorists? Leaving aside the fact that these prisoners have not been charged, tried, or convicted, leaving aside the demonization inherent in the statement that these people know no moral values, this argument is like saying that if someone kills a drug dealer, it's not murder.

The definition of torture depends on the actions being performed, not the nature of the victim. There may be an argument (though not one recognized by the international community) that the ends justify the means, but the ends do not and can never change the nature of the means. Moral relativism, indeed.