Of course torture doesn't work, unless you are recruiting for your enemy. Every 16 year old Iraqi girl raped, every old woman whom is being touched in a familiar way by males not in her family, every non-militant student hauled away in the middle of the night only adds to the outrage felt by scores of young men, emasculated by what they see as an invasion and an occupation, and seething with resentment and a thirst for vengeance.
You make a couple valid points. If the "torture" is "like college hazing", some college hazing can get pretty brutal, haven't most US Colleges and Universities denounced and demanded the disconinuation of practice known as "Hazing", as the practice has led to the deaths of several dozens of students across the country? Are we not now closing down Fraternities and Sororities, their National Charters revoked for continuing to "Haze" initiates?
And how does that make America look to the rest of the world? To those of you who say, "Who cares?", well, I do and you should, unless you want several dozen nations all coming after us at the same time. Torture has always been considered illegal in the US under any circumstances, mostly as a way of ensuring similar treatment will not happen to OUR POWs. Brutality only encourages even more brutal behavior in response.
We're Americans, dammit, and Americans don't believe in torturing anyone, for any reason. Shooting them, that's a different story. Using fear of death to make a prisoner talk I have absolutely no problem with. Mess with his mind all you want, but no DRUGS, no sleep or sense deprivation, no crap in his food (of any kind), no using his or her religious beliefs against him, no degradation. Try showing the world we are better than that, that the US doesnt believe in and will not use torture, because, as you said, it's a completely unreliable interrogation tool. You cause someone enough pain, he or she will admit to being a three toed sloth. Everyone can be broken, just as everyone can be killed. It's a matter of time and convenience.