I don't think I believe that repugnant actions must benefit the American public - just that broadly, when rounding, it does in practice. I do not believe that i

I don't think I believe that repugnant actions must benefit the American public - just that broadly, when rounding, it does in practice. I do not believe that it has or deserves American consent. Regarding getting the intelligence you 'want' out of torture - we saw that in action as recently as the start of the Iraq war when tortured informants, under duress, gave intelligence (unreliable of course), that the Bush administration wanted to hear - Iraq and Bin Laden were both connected to the 9/11 attacks. This was used, even though the CIA warned the administration that the intelligence wasn't actionable, as some of the key evidence used to justify the war in Iraq that the Administration wanted to engage in anyway. But from what I can tell and have read, torture is quite effective when there is a means of verifying specifics (location of hideouts, numbers of people, names of those in certain roles, dates of events), which our intelligence apparatus does have in some capacity. No intelligence information is without bias/counterintelligence/deception and in fact all HUMINT (even honest and helpful ones) - intelligence agencies know this most of all and have mechanisms to counter them. I agree we should be skeptical of torture for a number of reasons. And as other have said, "that torture is effective is KGB argument." Effectiveness is not a justification anyway. But it is my understanding that torture, when used properly, can be effective. Where my belief may not have very good support is probably here. I believe that broadly, the use of torture by America is effective use of torture.