I just had this discussion with my daughter tonight (given my history it comes up now and then). It is a very difficult issue. One not everyone viewed the same when I was in the military as well. My daughter and I discussed:

Is it ever ok to sacrifice 1 for many? What if you knew that one death or pain to one person could save thousands. Would you sacrifice yourself if it would save an entire city? Even if you personally would do so by choice, is it ever right to make that decision for another? What if that one person was also one of the thousands who would die? Would it be ok then? If you torture 10 people and 9 of the 10 make up stories to stop the torture (an accurate estimate in my personal opinion) and 1 person confesses the truth to terrorist acts or complicity in them due to the torture, it takes time to verify the information (you know the different means of doing so). If the information from that one person saves thousands of lives, was it morally right or acceptable to have tortured the other nine who made up stuff to make the torture end? Of the other 9, probably 2 of them were indirectly involved and so had a level of guilt but not enough involvement or knowledge to be of use.

And yes, we discussed what happens to the view of the U.S. by the world after the torture. Do we make 100,000 new enemies from torturing one person? Does the # even matter if it saves Americans lives? Are we just creating more enemies to attack us and then have to torture more people because of the new threat we created? Is it a vicious circle that never ends? Is the problem the torture itself or the openness of our media that brought it to light?