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In my military history class a few years ago, my professor invited a CIA case officer (also a former Marine and former student of the same class) to give a guest lecture to the class. He said it was NEVER okay to torture, and that the "ticking time-bomb scenario" (which is a one-in-a million chance contrived scenario in the first place) and for which many envision torture to be useful could be avoided if one had done their homework the right way up until that point.
To me, torture represents doing things the convenient and easy way, rather than doing things the right way. It is un-American and goes against our values. The ticking time-bomb scenario is the ONLY scenario for which I would even consider saying that torture is justified. And who's to say that the same intelligence couldn't have been obtained without torture, with a little more time and patience?
I agree, I disagree that waterbaording and sleep deprivation can honestly be catagorized as torture.