There are ample reasons to be against torture as a government sanctioned practice. Chief among them would be that people inclined to actually conduct the torture may be doing it for the wrong reasons.
However, the excuse, "because it doesn't work," is wrong. Enhanced interrogation conducted on terrorists when it was legal actually produced useful information that likely saved lives.
And of course, we can't talk about torture without bringing up John McCain. He has routinely denounced the practice, and he has good reason, having been subjected to some form of it while being held prisoner by the Viet Cong. But he should be the last person to say it doesn't work. Here's a snippet from his speech at the 2008 Republican Convention:
A lot of prisoners had it much worse... A lot of -- a lot of prisoners had it a lot worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as many others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me.
It's doubtful that he had any intelligence that would have been useful to his captors. But if he did, they would have gotten it. In his own words, "they broke me."
That doesn't excuse the crude remarks made by Thomas McInerney about McCain on TV. See Fox News Bans Guest Analyst Who Said Torture ‘Worked’ on John McCain. His words could have been a little more artful and less insulting even though some of what he said was true.
Disclosure: Although I'm currently not a McCain fan, I did donate to his presidential campaign a decade ago.
Related: Speaking out on torture and a Trump nominee, ailing McCain roils Washington.
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12:21 PM 5/12/2018
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