Del Arroyo, the two main differences between war and torture is IMO:
A. It's purpose. The main purpose of war is to win by defeating your enemy, the main purpose if torture is to inflict pain.
B. The powersituation. In war both sides can fight back, while in the case of torture you're at the whim of your torturer (that has already shown himself being able to inflict pain and suffering).

As for the moral high ground, let skip that issue for now and go for the practical stuff.

Torture as an interogation meassure gives you lot of information quickly. The problem is that you'll get unreliable information, because some will try to appease you (mostly people that got no info at all in reality) and some of those with accurate information will still continue to lie for you. And it's hard to get more info than what you know you want (aka you won't get more info then the answers on your questions) because the victim will certainly not trust you.
So for info it's the quick and inaccurate way to get info, while befriending is the slower but more accurate way to get info.

Basically if you know that you got the right guy and know that he will tell the truth when he breaks, and need info fast, torture is the way to go. In all other cases, there's better ways.

As for Iraq. It's a quite well-known fact that terrorist/freedom fighters/etc need support by the population to operate in that area. Most of it is passive, as in not reporting in to the goverment if you hear something.
Would you trust those guys that seemingly random takes people and tortures them? Hell, would you even trust them if they treat people as in Abu Gharib (some patrons here doesn't consider that torture, so I needed to be speciffic). I wouldn't. Instead those wacky guys that likes blowing things up would make more sence, when they are chanting about "Death to the oppressors!". Enough to make me not support that goverment, and that is enough to make a difference in control for the goverment.
BTW the population will know that mistreatment/torture happens, unless you make the tortured people "disappear".
And even if the US truely wins in Iraq, treating this stuff as "no big deal" will create a free democratic Iraq were the idea of blowing up every American base in Iraq is getting a massive support.

Then we got that small issue about mental damage of the victims and the torturers and the readaptation back to the normal society. Those who have comed to enjoy the torture are the biggest problem here I think.

So basically you get poor information, loses the war on terror (rallying against a true oppressor is easier than vs a mostly made up one. This is applied world wide so even if you win in Iraq by terror you lose) and get a lot of people with mental damage (=societal damage).
What a brilliant deal!!!

And now back to the moral aspect. I'm going to bet that most people from any time-line would say that our "moral high ground" is something good and something to strive for. Your founding fathers thought so for example. Is that something to trow out the window this easily?

Quote Originally Posted by Del Arroyo
And finally, whether or not this "moral high ground" is fictional, and whether or not we have anything to gain by it, does a little bit of pain or discomfort inflicted on a limited number of individuals really, truly, surrender it?
A small speach.
This "moral high ground" applies to everybody. Except those guys, I mean I reallly, really know that those guys are bad.

Are you ready to put that power in one persons hand? A hand that got no troble torturing people. That he will always do it right? A well, it doesn't matter, if some bloke gets wrongfully tortured, I don't know him, don't care about. As suggested, why not use it in your own judical system in that case?

The slippery slope is also needed to be mentioned. It might only be one step, but it's certainly the most important one.