That's an interesting moral position, and as someone with a passing interest in history, I often wonder about.
You are here because the vast majority of your ancestors will willing to slit and many throats as they had to in order to ensure that they, their families, and their tribe (of whatever size) survived to make it to the next round. Some people, even in relatively modern and liberal societies, did some very unsavvory things on the battlefield, then came home and lived quiet, moral lives.
I certainly appreciate the courage of your convictions, but I wonder what it says about the human race overall.
That's very true.
My perspective may make more sense to you if you also understand that I believe that I will one day be held accountable for my actions. If you don't buy into the Christian point of view on such matters, feel free to call it a sense of absolute metaphysical accountability.
If I believe that one day I will have to stand before God and be called to account for what I did in this life, then my reluctance to torture becomes more comprehensible; to me, the ultimate disposition of whatever remains of me in some metaphysical afterlife trumps even such a great concern as the survival of Western civilization.
However, one need not be concerned with heaven or hell in order to conclude that torture is a bad idea. I personally believe that terrorists ought not to be allowed to continue their lives' work unmolested specifically because they purposely inflict pain, injury, terror, and death on the helpless in order to advance their cause.
If I have to become what I oppose in order to more effectively oppose it, then I have in effect handed victory willingly to my enemy--without a fight.
It says that what we do, is relative.