Yes, we watch 24 over here - it's the fourth season now, I believe, and we are getting used to proven guilty culprits threatening to blast all American Nuclear plants and hiding information. We must save lives. And of course: one cannot take into consideration the rights of those unwilling to cooperate
Torture is clean in 24. You don't see naked bodies chained into extreme postures, there's no blood, no sweat, no feces, no urine or to spell it plainly: no one is beating the shit out of anyone, no breaking bones, no smashed faces, bursting jaws, no "real damage" - at least not until Jack Bauer arrives. The torturer is no offspring of Dante's Inferno or the Roman-Catholic Inquisition. No he's a well trained and well clad and well known specialist. He uses "clean" undetectable methods as sensory deprivation, drugs and tasers. There may be some "unpleasant time" but afterwards the victims simply get up and walk home or continue to work: maybe they sulk a little. But why? They have been treated as humanely as anyone camping under the free sky in the American Holiday Paradise for forcefully retired terrorists, sorry, "unlawful combatants", Guantanamo Bay, close to Florida, isn't it?
The National Security is the Alpha and Omega, the one single true cause, that justifies ANY THING. It also heals everything and turns right what seemed wrongly wrong.
And we are given a real example of American heroism, when the Secretary orders his son to be tortured: "Yes, you are my son, but I have sworn to protect this country." And anyway: why does he insist on a private life? If National Security wants to know, all of us around the whole globe have to answer "proactively". We humbly learn: if the War on Terror is to be won we must sacrifice ourselves and our flesh and blood on the altar of National Security.