Also, most importantly, what about the major counter-argument that torture makes us less safe - it provides fuel for anti-western radicals, it helps extremists recruit, and it totally cuts the legs from under our argument that fascist or extremist regimes shouldn't torture their own citizens for things like plotting against the state, being gay, saying a rude thing about the government on social media, etc? The evidence seems to me to be overwhelming not only that torture is pretty nasty, but that the risks to the security of western civilians massively appear to outweigh the benefits.
Even if there was no torture being done at all, they'd still say we were torturing them. It's not like they get any other news than that which radicals telling them what news is. Torturing someone under suspect of terrorism and such is waaaaay different than torturing someone for being gay. One is clearly wrong, one is at the very least, slightly less wrong (though in my opinion, right of course). Also remember that they aren't dealing with nice people, they don't listen to reason, arguments won't work, being nice to them won't work ala the interrogators mentioned in the ww2 file. The soldiers that Moran and Scharff interrogated were either drafted or enlisted to fight for their country probably because their friends did and so forth, not because they believed that their religion superseded everything and that anyone not of their type was evil for simply not being one of them. I highly doubt either of those methods would work. Using psychology to get the topic of the interrogation in the forefront of the subjects mind and then breaking the barriers that prevent people from saying what's on their mind is a sound way of getting information on the topic.
@ Prenty (and a bit to jub): Innocence is relative. The rest is opinion, which is fine.
Back to @Jub: Yeah I also believe that torture is wrong, jesus dude I'm not a psychopath. But also I believe it's the lesser of two evils. In that report it says making friends with them takes time, I would think that this time would mean that most information on plots would be useless by the time they got that information. Also I'm only talking about the torture of terrorists/suspected terrorists, not army personnel that you happen to be at war with which is *very* wrong. If that army uses terror techniques, then they classify as terrorists insofar as the subject matter in my opinion.
EDIT: The result of bad intelligence from torture is that the CIA/Army/whoever chases sand for a couple of hours/days. The result of good intelligence is that people who are better than the person being tortured get to live the rest of their lives. If you're nice to them, the intelligence may be good but it's also not going to be useful to prevent anything that happens in the time between holding them and when they reveal anything. If they ever do.