If that's the case, you don't have a ticking time bomb, do you.

No, in my scenario the terrorists are using chronometers that don't tick.

Since you will have no way of knowing when this fantasy bomb of your's is set to go off (or even if there is one), you will have to assume that it is set with a rather short fuze and therefore, you would consider it justifyable to torture every single prisoner you had your hands on

Whoa! Slow down, hoss. Let's take those one at a time:

Since you will have no way of knowing when this fantasy bomb of your's is set to go off (or even if there is one)

We could conceivably have intelligence that shows they acquired a nuke. And we may have bugged a room or a cave where they discussed all their plans in detail. Or we may have recovered a hard drive from one of the conspirators containing lots of relevant information about their plan.

Maybe we intercepted a communication from the ringleader to the guy we captured saying, "Set the bomb to detonate on June 13th, 2009." And then later another one from the ringleader to the same guy saying, "Hey, did you set the nuclear device to go off on June 13, 2009?" And then a reply email where the guy we are holding says, "Yes, I set it to go off on June 13, 2009." And then the ringleader replied, "You are absolutely positive that you set the nuclear device to go off on June 13, 2009?" And then the guy we are holding says, "What the fuck did I just tell you? I set the nuclear device to go off on June 13, 2009. Do you want me to tell you again?"

So we could know there is one and when it is going to go off.

How important is it to know when it is going to go off?

Obviously its important from a prgmatic standpoint, but even if we just knew they had one and had a serious plan in motion to detonate it in an American city, we would have to make an all-out push to thwart the plan. Don't you agree?

You have just put your stamp of approval on what the Bush Administration has done. They had no way of knowing whether there were more plots (there apparently were not), so they tortured people to find out.

Not at all. My scenario assumes that we know there is a nuke and a plan to detonate it. Bush was not operating under anything close to my scenario. And you better stay clear on that point, my simian friend, because they will try to sell it like they were in a ticking time bomb scenario but we can't let them get away with that kind of spin. So don't be an idiot with your logic.

Can I interest you in a nice fresh banana?

Credit where it's due, you do respond a lot. You just don't say much.

Yeah, you're right. I've barely even put together a logical argument in any of these comments. Its mostly just bananas.

Dude: you are so full of shit. Where are all of your great contributions to this debate?

Here's something from a wikipedia article on torture in Vietnam:

In the end, North Vietnamese torture was sufficiently brutal and prolonged that virtually every American POW so subjected made a statement of some kind at some time.[14] (As one later wrote of finally being forced to make an anti-American statement: "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."[10]) Realizing this, the Americans' aim became to absorb as much torture as they could before giving in, then admit to each other what had happened, lest shame or guilt consume them or make them more vulnerable to additional North Vietnamese pressure.[12] Nevertheless, the POWs obsessed over what they had done, and would years after their release still be haunted by the "confessions" or other statements they had made.[15] As another POW later said, "To this day I get angry with myself. But we did the best we could. [We realize], over time, that we all fall short of what we aspire to be. And that is where forgiveness comes in."[15]