torture... is it unforgiveable?

On the subject of torture, i find that it is something that i find myself reluctant to talk about. My own beliefs on the basis of torture are somewhat scattered and possibly controversial.
Torture in the past has been used for many things. If we consider the "all powerful" Roman Empire, we see that torture was a very popular form of public entertainment. I believe that this is partially because of the innate bloodlust which resides within most humans, though today e consider ourselves more "civilized" than that and so we have either eolved past that animalistic state or we are hiding it from ourselves. I'll continue on the subject of the Roman Empire and say that even though that part of their culture we see as vulgar, they were still among one of the greatest civilizations of the world. They were intelligent in politics and warfare, they knew how to change their world and how to influence the people under them and for this, we admire them. They were a force against the "barbaric" tribes and yet the fact that they tortured innocent for pleasure is in and of itself barbaric... and the reason for it is even more so. The grand arena was a place where the common people of Ancient Rome could gather and watch slaves kill eachother and be killed y animals, etc. These events were held to keep the common people happy and to satisfy their blood lust so that they wouldn't turn against the emperor.
A similar event still takes place today in Spain, a country which we consider highly civilized - i'm talking about the bull fighting. This satisfies the people's blood lust and then the meat from the dead bull is distributed to the hungry.
What is the difference between these examples of satisfying blood lust and human torture which is supposedly used to gleen information from the victim? I think there is a huge difference. I don't believe it is right and i certainly don't believe that it should be common practice. I do believe that it is sometimes necessary. i believe that as humans we have certain rights, and yet at the same time, we have certain responsibilities. To betray our obligation to the rest of our species is to relinquish some of those rights. We should all be above torture. We should be enlightened enough to be good enough to eachother to make torture obsolete, and yet most of us are far from this state. And so, it is under the most dire situations that torture should be practiced. Sometimes, we must allow a lesser evil to achieve a greater good.