hell, wars are all about exchanging someone's life for something that the country wants.
The real question is why torture? Why this incompetitant, bumbling, make-it-up-as-you-go approach to getting information? That's the part I have trouble believing.
We've taught Contras and others how to extract information....and we haven't a clue? We looking to Nazis and the Spanish Inquistion for inspiration....but I don't think of Nazis when I think of interrogation techniques.
This whole thing speaks to me of an EMOTIONAL issue. Someone wants to make someone SUFFER. I still subscribe to the opinion that an interrogator has NO EMOTION for this subject. He's extracting information; anything else get's in the way of that. (That's why I believe more in truth serum and others drugs.)