Obama banned torture years ago but its replacement is still brutal

There was never any torture at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT), including waterboarding, were used on "a handful of detainees" which resulted in obtaining "valuable information" that "saved many lives," so says former President George W. Bush in his autobiography, "Decision Points." EIT were approved and legal when used at Gitmo. Former President Obama unilaterally declared waterboarding and other EIT to be torture without ever changing the internationally accepted definition. That definition drove the legal arguments for EIT. In his autobiography, "Known and Unknown," former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld claims "no DoD personnel" were ever trained in EIT nor performed EIT at Gitmo or anywhere else. "Only the CIA" were trained in using these techniques according to Rumsfeld. Indeed, for something to be considered torture it must meet the criteria for torture, which was never the case with waterboarding or EIT. And furthermore, why would anyone use a technique that didn't work? All information obtained through interrogation is vetted before any effective actionable response can be made. So it seems to me that all this talk about what works and what doesn't is subjective and anecdotal. Sincerely, Montgomery J. Granger, Major (Ret.), US Army, former ranking US Army Medical Department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and author: "Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior."