I agree, but how do you make a person who knows something talk? All of you are saying torture doesn't work, and I agree, but how do we get information to help us fight an enemy who is can be anyone anywhere in a land that is foreign to you?
Drugs. "Truth" drugs (which make the recipient chatter or change their perception of their situation/captors) have been effective in many situations, especially with ideologues. However, in most cases, there's nothing you can do, and if you've gotten into a "ticking bomb" situation, it's half your fault. The purpose of GOOD intelligence is to avoid such over-the-top situations.
Torture is all about gratifying the baser urges of the torturer: revenge against fear and/or injustice, mob cruelty, or just plain old sadism. There is NO righteous application of torture, despite what your personal revenge fantasies might lead you to believe.
Most people who join terrorism groups or become suicide bombers do not belong to any religious group. Many of them are young people who gets a thrill out of doing something extreme, if you can believe that.
Actually, most of them are successful intellectuals educated outside their own country. Idiots and thrill-seekers don't deliberately craft and execute terrorist sucide acts; "suicide" in their cases are accidental or the result of carelessness. Rather, the "suicide bombers" are ideologues with a rogue sense of altruism -- they have convinced themselves that the world will be a better place if the act they are planning succeeds, and that their life must be forfeit to see it through in the grandest fashion. There's no difference between them and our abortion clinic bombers -- they aren't kamikaze pilots or berserkers casting their life aside in an extreme wartime situation. They're well-educated, capable folks with a very crazy altruistic and paranoid religious streak.
