TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Tuesday’s episode of the Daily Show included a debate between Jon Stewart and Cliff May on torture, but the full debate was too long to fit in the show.

Here’s the unedited version of the debate, which is one of the better discussions I’ve heard.

Jon argued that we should consider captured al Qaeda militants as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention (even though they do not meet the requirements), which effectively means we cannot interrogate — at all — al Qaeda militants, no matter their position and knowledge of planned terrorist attacks.

The Geneva Convention says in regard to prisoners of war:

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

I am not sure if Jon knew what the implications are of designating al Qaeda militants as prisoners of war. It would mean that we cannot subject al Qaeda leaders, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who organized the September 11th attacks) to any interrogation tactics whatever — if he did not wish to talk, then he would have been free to go back to his cell.

That is ludicrous. These are not normal soldiers on a battlefield — people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have dedicated their lives to murdering as many innocent people as possible. That is their life goal, and he (and others) have done as much as possible to realize that goal. They should not be afforded the same protections as an honorable foot soldier of a standing army whose only goal is to get home alive to his wife and kids.

I do not think that waterboarding should be used. It is terrible. But in our obsession with waterboarding, we have also eliminated other methods — such as sleep deprivation and subjecting the individuals to loud music (sounds absurd that this is considered torture) — that certainly (in my mind) do not go beyond the line of a reasonable tactic to use on high-level terrorists to gain intelligence necessary to save innocent lives.

That is the important debate: where do we draw the line between justified coercive techniques, and torture? How much physical and mental discomfort should be used? Jon’s (stated) position, that no coercive techniques should be used at all, is as reactionary as the far right’s belief that any tactics should be on the table.

Unfortunately, we haven’t had this debate. We’ve only debated whether intelligence agents and lawyers should be prosecuted. We’re missing the point here: what is and isn’t torture? It isn’t such a simple question.