To begin with, torture is morally wrong; no matter what the hypothetical scenerio you may dream up--torture will always remain morally indefensable. "But you're a self-proclaimed nihilist," you shout, "what do you care for morality?!" This is true, however, you are probably not a moral nihilist, or at least do not proclaim yourself to be so, and therefore morality should be of the highest order for you; after all, it is the "salvation of your soul" we're talking about here. Besides, one can be a nihilist and still have respect for human life and suffering. I'm not a sociopath after all. But I digress.
Being a moral nihilist, I will spare you any long lectures on the morality of turtore and skip over to the more pragmatic arguments against torture. Now everybody who has given it even half a thought knows that under extreme pain and the threat of even more to come, anybody will admit to just about anything. Torture a man long enough, he'll tell you who shot JFK--that doesn't make it the least bit true. If, on the other hand, the only thing you are looking for is a confession, and you don't give half a rat's ass about the actual truth, then by all means torture away. You'll get the confession you were looking for, and half your constituancy will probably believe it was true. Just don't call it torture--call it coercion or some other bullshit euphamism. After all, nobody likes to admit that they are the bad guy. If, on top of that, you can convince people that the person you are torturing is evil--well hell, even your opponents will be afraid to criticize you.
If, however, it is true information you are looking for, your best bet is to befriend the man you have in custody. Confidance leads to confidant information.
On top of the utter lack of accurate information given to you by torture--or as we here in the grand ol' US of A like to call it, "coercion"--you really do manage to totally wreck your standing in the world. Fear will force people to follow you, but when it can be helped respect is far better.
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