You cant compare waterboarding and treating suspects with proven links to terrorism a bit shit without killing them to get some information out of them and decapitating charity aid workers just for being westerners.
As fun as this debate is, whether the CIA tortured any number of terror suspects doesnt even register on my giveashitometer. Mind you if they start parading their prisoners on the TV and forcing them to renounce Islam before brutally slicing off their heads then I might get a tad offended.
In the real world there is no such thing as a democracy that is respectful of human rights, liberty and freedom of speech, it simply doesnt exist anywhere in the world. Therefore there is nothing to erode, the US has simply owned up to doing something every other nation on earth takes part in...
The CIA admits to using torture techniques and everyone is up in arms and horrified? Pretty much standard practice for the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and a host of other African, Middle Eastern and Asian nations so why all the fuss? So America turns out to be no different than any other...
Apart from the word 'imperialist' that pretty much sums up every single country in the Middle East. Hardly an area renowned for its freedom of speech, human rights, treatment of minorities or tolerance of LGBT issues. Hmm if I gave you a choice of where to live? Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran...