Actually, I didn't say anything about torture. Those incarcerated at Gitmo have been labelled "unlawful combatants" and have been denied PoW status and the rights accorded that designation. I'm not going to dive into claim and counter-claim regarding torture.
Finessing around treaty obligations (the USA is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions) is, in my opinion, a bad idea. There is a reason the USA signed those conventions and a reason why an important facet of the USA legal system is due process. Every time a treaty obligation is ignored or a cornerstone of the legal system is denied, a little bit of what makes America great erodes.
, isn't war in itself a barbaric act in the first place?