Well, I agree with your assessment that it should never be done for revenge but why not just extend that to that it never be done.

Every expert I've heard on the subject including people that have been subjected to it has been pretty clear on the topic. It is absolutely an unreliable interrogation technique. It's a warm fuzzy to believe that you'll be in possession of some dreaded terrorist that has vital information you'll be able to beat out of him in the nick of time to save thousands of people but it's more likely you'll get some useless info out of the guy so the pain or mental anguish stops.

It's just as likely that for every 1 valuable piece of information you'd get out of some form of torture you'd end up 10 pieces of crap that lead you down the wrong road and waste countless hours of resources.

The Geneva Convention wasn't pushed by the US to keep us from torturing other combatants. It was designed to save our own soldiers the anguish torture can bring. The framers were wise enough to know that one had to give up a tool to prevent that tool from being used on us. Why is this such a difficult concept?

Art