Torture should be legal

==========Rebuttals==========R1: LegalityMy opponent says that terrorists are not part of a country, we should not abide by the Geneva Conventions. He is basically saying "it is okay" that we torture random citizens who are of a threat to our nation.And he doesn't refute my unconstitutional argument, so it stands. The Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment and self-incrmination. So, torture perpetrated by the US would be unconstitutional. This stands.R2: IntelligenceMy opponent goes on to say, "do you really want to risk not being able to get the information needed to protect this Nation and it's citizens from an imminent attack?" This has two major implications. First, this is another example of a ticking time bomb scenario, in which I said they are very rare. Second, I already proved in round two that torture is the same or worse at collecting information than other conventional, ethical means.My opponent goes on to show and example in which torture did work. This fails to refute my stance though. I have shown that frequently torture leads to bad intelligence because they know, "whatever I said would be enough for them to leave me alone." I also showed how mutual respect leads to results - aka conventional and ethical means of info. gathering. As I proved, 1) they are more effective than torture, and 2) are more ethical. I proved that the US army finds torture ineffective and causes US resentment, which is counter intuitive and dangerous. The negative externalities arising from torture vastly outnumber any sort of "intelligence" that may be gathered from the barbaric practices of torture. My opponent also didn't respond to my argument why don't we line up the terrorist and their families, and torture their families if it would be more effective than torture against the terrorist at gathering information? The slipperly slope of torture would make this desirable - torture the families of terrorists for information. My opponent dropped this argument.R3: MoralityMy opponent attempts to refute my "torture is unconstitutional" argument. However, the text of the 8th amendment states:"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." [1]If the US gov't or military inflicted torture (cruel and unusual punishment) on other people, it would be unconstitutional.My opponent also goes on and says he opposes torture that is more widespread. However, this misses my point. If it did collect information, which my opponent says it does, and is thus effective as my opponent says it is, why NOT use it against our own citizens if we can gather valuable information from them? So yes, torture does lead to a slipperly slope towards the torture of our own citizens, because IF torture was found to be useful, there would be no reason not to torture our own citizens as well.Ultimately, if torture is legal it would become ethically necessary to torture our citizens, and this would occur. R4: Harms the TroopsMy opponent attempts to drive away the point and say perhaps if we weren't there in the Middle East there wouldn't be terrorists harming us. This isn't related to the debate or accurate.Regardless, my opponent left this point alone. I believe we should oppose terrorism and fight it through more multilaterist approaches, and leave military force as an option after negotiations and diplomacy. But, my opponent failed to prove my point wrong. I PROVED that torture which was inflicted by the US military was used to spur anti American resentment and to recruit higher numbers of militants to al Qaeda's ranks. My opponent failed to refute this. Thus my point stands.ConclusionTorture, which is inflicted by the US is unconstitutional. It is against the Geneva codes. Those torture is already illegal. Torture is no better or worse at collecting information that other ethical, conventional means. My opponent failed to refute this primary fact. Torture increases anti American resentment and increases al Qaeda recruitment, making torture not only ineffective in any way whatsoever, but counter intuitive. Plus, I have said and proved my point that torture leads to a slippery slope in which torture against normal US citizens is okay if it collects valuable information, which my opponent says it does. So, if torture was effective for information, why not torture our citizens? My opponent did not counter my slippery slope argument.My opponent failed to refute any arguments I have presented and has not met his BoP.