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Ok if it does not speak to you I'll have a crack at it.

Any injury by any implement of war can cause horrible injury to combatants and non-combatants, whether it is a knife, a bullet a missile, bomb etc. Right? I’m certain that there are victims of torture who have not suffered as much as the victims of the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima. I trust you would agree. Does this fact mean that because a torture victim has suffered less they were not tortured? Of course not.

Therefore something else, some other component of action, is required to meet the definition of torture. What is it? Well we could consult a dictionary, or some treatise on the subject, but without rezsorting to such an authority, I would suggest to you that torture involves the deliberate infliction of severe suffering (as opposed to discomfort, of the sort associated with incarceration) that is designed to elicit some form of gain, for the party inflicting such suffering. Further, the circumstances under which that individual is subjected to such suffering, occurs while that individual is under the direct control of the party inflicting the suffering. Also the victim is unable to take any physical action (moving, body armor, gas mask, bomb shelter etc) to avoid the consequences of a noxious stimulus (bullet, missile, bomb, pliers, bamboo chutes etc). Finally, the harm is directed at a specific individual, not to prevent that individual from further supportive or direct hostile action towards the party inflicting the suffering (after all he is under the control of the party inflicting the suffering), but for some other reason, as for example a presumed “greater good” of saving someone else from injury.

That is how the two situations are different.