You express fine sentiments, and express them well. All worthy goals. But what I read between your lines (and I apologize if I'm reading wrong) is that you don't really trust our guys to have a pretty damn good idea of who it is they have locked up and I'm not sure you see a huge difference between our guys getting tough with a suspected terrorist and a dictatorship getting tough with somebody who just wants freedom of speech. Let's forget about appearances for a moment, and talk about reality. You do see a difference, right?
I guess in answer to your question I have to go back to my sense of what God expects of us. I think He expects really a lot and I don't think He often gets it. The notion of our guys having, as you say, "a pretty damn good idea of who it is they have locked up" is exactly the problem. The Old Testament lays out an incredibly stringent burden of proof in legal cases--multiple eyewitnesses, etc. The Constitution echoes that. Nowhere does it say that punishment--and torture is punishment, whatever its goal--can be meted out if the arresting officer has a pretty damn good idea of who it is he has locked up. God is always watching, whether it's the dictator's henchmen or the CIA guy in an unnamed Eastern European country.