Lets say I grant that something like waterboarding may or may not be torture. To me the onus is clearly on the person attempting to justify a questionably moral act as NOT evil before condoning its use -- especially in the case of intrinsically evil acts.

For example, very religiously liberal Catholics love to cite Aquinas in their support of life not beginning at conception - this despite the fact he clearly opposes abortion. This gives them license to ask the question "What is life?" and conclude that before a certain point the pregnancy is not life and thus abortion allowable. Should their doubt drive policy on such an important question?

In America we typically take it for granted that a man is innocent until proven guilty. Its the safest course -- the high road so to speak. When we are arguing with the confused on abortion we ask them to consider a baby alive until proven otherwise. It again is the high road. With interrogation I further submit that we consider these methods torture until proven otherwise. To me the fact that their end is to break the will makes it by definition torture. This is basically what The Public Discourse was getting at ... and (1)

I think this is why you have so many Catholics who are indignant and speaking with seeming dogmatic clarity on the issue. Torture is evil. On this there is no wiggle room.

Enter the statement: "Enhanced interrogation" is torture.

Its on this point that people of good-will in the Catholic world seem to disagree. I make no pretenses about the fact that some non-Catholics might support torture. The difference is, in my experience, they call it that. To me that is telling. Its even more telling that the secular world is brow-beating the faith over this failure to see the obvious. Prudence is in order, at a minimum, to avoid further scandal. That's why even if I thought it questionable (vs. immoral), our support in terms of legal vs. not should be even clearer.

** (1) For notes -- pulled this from Policraticus comment on Vox Nova:

The Church has provided us with the essential features of torture (i.e., its form) which we use to identify specific acts of torture (the documents are Veritatis Splendor 80 and Gaudium et spes 27). However, the Church defines torture formally (i.e., what makes an action torture):

1. violation of human dignity in the form of
2. intentional mental and/or physical harm in order to
3. use a human person as a means (or instrument) for some producible end
4. against that person’s will.

That’s the form of torture, and any material action that bears that form is intrinsically evil, plain and simple.