[spangry]

I probably muddled my own point by descending into a rant in the OP.

I just found the unsaid implication, that torture is fine if the person does possess information you want to know, worth examining. Perhaps consider it this way: imagine all of the assertions made by the Bush administration about the victim were correct; he really was the Al-Qaeda 2nd in command, he had smuggled high-ranked Al-Qaeda members out of Afghanistan etc.

Would there be a defensible justification to torture him, and what would that justification be?