That is not particularly a moral question, especially given that the hypothetical dichotomy is unlikely to exist in that exact form. "Is waterboarding a very effective way to gain useful or essential information?" must be determined by the prudential judgment of national security professionals. (Given that our national security professionals don't want to be prejudiced by reading potential terrorists' Facebook posts, we might take a jaundiced view of their prudential judgment, but that's another issue.)
Jesus was a little tough on the money-lenders.
He made a "whip of cords," a rope flail of some sort, and swatted at them with it as they scuttled from the Temple premises, leaving their money scattered on the ground. It boggles my mind that any rational person would conclude from that event that Jesus "approves" of torture.
Didn’t say he did. But he was not afraid of pain.
Any, as far as I can tell, waterboarding does no permanent damage, and fails to meet the level of torture, as I understand it.
At any rate, in this imperfect world, we are sometimes confronted with hard choices. In these cases, I will always choose my own side.
In the cases of terrorist leaders, it seems extremely probable to me that this particular dichotomy could occur.
“Swatted at them”? Maybe a little rougher than that. “Scourge”, “overthrew”, “drove them from the temple” seem, how I say, somewhat more extreme than “swatted”
Matthew 21:12
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
John 2:14
And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
John 2:15
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;