Without want to exonerate anyone, incidental loss of life is almost unavoidable for governments making big decisions with all their limitations, internal defici

Without want to exonerate anyone, incidental loss of life is almost unavoidable for governments making big decisions with all their limitations, internal deficiencies and bad actors. I believe you are trying to hold their feet to fire and construct a normative argument. However you did preface your argument with 'I don't get'. Something I personally 'don't get' is why people such as yourself find it so hard to understand how so many people are prepared to be 'nasty' on issues like this. Without putting to fine a point on it, it is because they don't care about the consequences to certain others (here a small number of very alien, mostly militant people) and they don't feel sufficiently threatened or even do feel emboldened by any potential retaliation . We may not like it, but The first part about effectiveness is a strawman. Since clearly in some situations it is possible to test truthfulness (by asking questions with answers you know, but they don't know you know), or get easily testable testimony (i.e. x is here), or simply get known information corroborated (which is of some value). It is simply very difficult to argue something should never be done given all the possible scenarios. Although I'm sympathetic to the idea that as a matter of policy governments shouldn't do something since they cannot be trusted and because there is clearly a slippery slope and concern about government overreach against its own citizens (then for an agent to break that policy they would themselves be facing consequences so would have to be pretty damn sure it was a good idea). Also you fail to understand the moral disposition of people who might support torture - conservatives. They are not simple consequentalists and certainly not utilitarians. They generally consider it utterly wrong to torture or directly injure people on their side. Conservatives have a strong sense of group loyalty. I would argue it is all very well to suspend group loyalty (or confine it to sports matches) if you can have it reciprocated from other groups, but when it clearly isn't taking the high road leaves you at a loss (albeit with a moral gain). Likewise to conservatives having a robust response to something is not a moral bad as such. Getting in the way of the (US) state can be likened to driving right to the edge of a cliff - it is your fault if you fall off, not the state's from being unyielding. Although the state could be soft on people after the fact, that would violate robustness. Instead it would prefer to push back the responsibility for any outcomes on to the individuals who have (presumably) clearly taken risks of getting caught up in this battle and then doubled down by refusing to give up information.