used in extreme circumstances
They got him to "cry uncle" and read a script, which is different from the Jack Bauer scenario (*I never saw 24) where you've got a guy, and you KNOW that he KNOWS, and you are looking for a specific thing
Instances like that, I would think, would be few and far between, and wouldn't be outsourced, and would never be heard about.
Which was kinda the point. Overall I'm against it. Gotta come up w/ a thriller spy movie scenario to justify it in my head. I will say waterboarding a guy you've had captive for a year is pretty useless. They've been out of the loop for a year. How valuable is anything they could possibly know at that point. If we're talking about "saving downtown before time runs out"... then it's time for some SAW movie franchise type shit.
I don't hold that against him either. It's just kind of a conundrum that he's said, "I know from experience that torture doesn't work." Other times he's talked about how "every man has his breaking point". I wouldn't personally know as I've never been tortured but I'd be willing to bet it does. They got him to say what they wanted him to. I will agree it's a horrible enough thing that it should only be used in extreme circumstances. Like some Jack Bauer 24 type shit where a massive number of people are going to die in an attack if he doesn't tell us where he planted the bombs!!!