"Human beings have been torturing information out of their enemies before they learned agriculture. For something that is assumed to never work, it seems to be a time-honored procedure. Or maybe they were ALL doing it for "fun." "

Yeah they got loads of information from those witches

"Bowser's little slipup made me think. Has anyone asked U.S. veterans who were tortured if any of them ever gave up any useful information?"

What useful information could they get?

Let's look back further to WWII. What secrets could any American soldier give? If the knew that the German or Japanese code was broken, that could be valuable informantion, but the soldiers didn't have this information. Now, the enemy could get information from spies or from resistance groups. Like, what is your name? What is your address? What country sent you?

As far as Vietnam, the simple truth was that American soldiers were badly prepared. They were ordered to only give name, rank, and serial number as per the Geneva Conventions. They studied the Geneva Conventions and they thought the right and honorable thing was to follow it and expect the enemy to follow it. This is quite stupid if you really think about it. So the American soldiers "gave up" by "being allowed" to shown on film and especially if the said anything, even if he only gave his name, rank, and serial number because just being on film as a prisoner of war was a violation of Geneva Convention.

Now, what information would we want from these terrorists?
How about their name? And do you have the phone number to anyone you know, like say your parents?

Ring. Ring. Hello, Mom or Dad of terrorist thug? Yes, this is US miltary, we are calling to let you know that your son is alive and safe. We would like to ask some question if that would be alright with you. Did you know that your son was a terrorist? Would would like some information on what your son and his friends have been doing. We have some photos and eye witness accounts of what they did. Etc.