Would George Washington approve of today's torture policies?

There is no denying that many of America’s founding fathers opposed torture. They opposed it on the battlefield as a relic of human barbarism more enlightened minds sought to leave behind. They opposed it as a tool used by absolute monarchs to extract confessions for use in trials against those accused of crimes. They opposed it as a tool of punishment.

As a matter of policy, America’s enhanced interrogation program is not designed to produce any of these effects (whether they do as a practical matter is a different question.) To the contrary, America’s policy toward prisoners of war goes far beyond anything General Washington would have imagined. Current military regulations require a high standard for maintaining not only the physical health of prisoners, but for their psychological and spiritual as well.

This high standard of treatment has actually been extended to unlawful combatants as defined by both U.S. and international law, something even Washington was loath to do (see André, Major John).