You're complaining to a thread that already knows this. We can complain all we want about lack of transparency and truth.

The point is - from where we stand, not where we want to be. We stand in pure speculation, and cannot create foreign policy based on "we're, like, pretty sure you did it... in our heads!"

If we did, this kind of system creates guantanamo bay and the iraq war. We hold people against their will swearing they have information. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So we resort to torture and have murdered plenty in the name of it. What if they actually don't have the information? Then we're just torturing/murdering innocents.

Is it worth it? Personally I say no. But it won't stop us from parading around the success cases screaming "the ends justify the means".