Debate: A right to torture?

Intelligent people can choose which books to read all by themselves thanks. As it happens, without reading anything on it, I think torture is a viable means of getting information, providing the questioner knows what he/she is doing and not just in it for fun.

There a a number of problems with torture:
1) Does the person being tortured have the informaton you require?
2) Therefore will torturing provide the results you require? Will these results be the truth?
3) A trained terrorist will be able to withstand a leve of torture.
4) A trained terrorist is trained to provide misinformation. Direct the process towards the wrong targets.
5)Even the low level of torture (just like any form of abuse for instance domestic violence) can escalate beyond the original intent. For example: Threatening to kill or torture a detainee's loved ones if the desired results are not forthcoming under this threat perhaps because the detainee does not hold this information then the torturer is then committed to carrying out the threat of death or torture of innocent individuals connected to the detainee.
6) The moral code has been breached.
6) This leads to an escalation in the next interrogation and so on...
7) Is the intelligence information correct regarding this detainee? Often it is incorrect. Look on the CIA website and you will find many factural errors regarding everyday knowledge. For example, the Uk's city of Truro is not cited as a city. This may seem trivial and irrelevant, but if simple public knowledge is misleading then it is obvious that covertly obtained information has a high percentage of having errors.
8) Intelligence Officers are under enormous pressure to provide information and it is well documented that information has been malnipulated to fit the scenario rather than admitting failure to provide results. After all, IO do not want to be posted to a lower position or even lose their job.
10) Torture also provides the reason why many previous neutral or friendly individuals change their alligances and thus support for the terrorists. Thus torture gives individuals every reason to hate.
9) Hate is the prime reason why terrorist exist, therefore torture fuels hatred and thus terrorism.
11) Thus torture gives the enemy every reason to hate and thus is a prime recruitment stimulus for terrorist's cause.
12) Democratic societies cannot hold the moral high ground (for example, as against Iraq) while conducting similar interrogative techniques as countries deemed below their own moral standards.

Intelligent people can choose which books to read all by themselves thanks. As it happens, without reading anything on it, I think torture is a viable means of getting information, providing the questioner knows what he/she is doing and not just in it for fun.

I MUST QUESTION YOUR ASSERTION THAT TORTURE IS A VIABLE MEANS OF GETTING INFORMATION.Do you know of any 'methods' that produce accurate results?

I WOULD DOUBT THAT THEY EXIST. I feel and believe that physically and psychologically traumatised 'torturees' would seek any means of discontinuing what is happenig to them, which must allow for a victim to saying or doing whatever it takes. Information produced under such methods may or may not be accurate.

Torture is probably a form of revenge or punishment. Also i am interested in the psychology of those who torture , what sort of individuals are they, what are their motives?
You even raise the question of being in it for 'fun' which supports my own concerns.
However i do agree with your statement that intelligent people can make their own decisions without reading about it. I do not think that torture is suitable for an academic discussion nor can it be intellectualised by reading texts. The response needs to be an instant and emotive one, it is an evil undertaken by evil regimes.However i will add that i am not suggesting that no action is taken , for example where terrorism is concerned .

Blackhawk.