Should Mother Teresa have been tortured for being a sadistic religious fanatic? Allegedly she talked those who suffer into thinking that suffering is something positive.

xtreme violence, barbarity, murdering, raping, pillaging, etc. are evil.

Not according to Plato, the Neo-Platonist school (on which our forms of government and systems of justice are, after all, largely based), Augustine and a host of other theologians and philosophers they are not.

Not according to Plato, the Neo-Platonist school (on which our forms of government and systems of justice are, after all, largely based), Augustine and a host of other theologians and philosophers they are not. — Barry Etheridge

We both know this is laughably false, no intellectual would take your assertions seriously. Cite, for example, where Plato encourages barbarity, murder, rape and justifies these as being good in-themselves.

What suggest to you that it is necessary that he does any such thing? It is the Platonic position, given its fullest expression by Neo-Platonist Christians that there exists only good as creation is entirely a superabundance of good (identified with God). Existence is not possible without good. Every entity which has being consists only of good. And every action of that entity must therefore be motivated by good. The problem is only that it is falsely perceived, corrupted by ignorance, desire, and the demands of physicality. As Mary Wollstonecraft famously put it ...

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
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The principal conclusion of interest in this discussion from this position is that there is therefore no such thing as irredeemability. From a secular platonist's point of view punishment by death is by definition pointless (it does not eradicate evil since there is no evil to eradicate) and counter productive (destroying good no matter how tainted). For theists it is also hubris, wresting control of life and death from God, and therefore no less sinful than any of the crimes for which the punishment is being handed out. For both theist and non-theist, those who execute criminals are achieving nothing because they are simply repeating the same mistakes that led to the crimes in the first place leaving the human sphere not one iota improved.

Contrary to your poo-pooing, there are many current philosophers, both theist and non-theist who hold for these and other reasons that evil has no ontological reality. And there is no denying that in most modern justice systems that is the effective philosophical position which underlies the handling of convicted criminals. Retributive 'justice' is, to your chagrin, I'm sure, very much a busted flush, even in the majority of American states, as rehabilitation (redemption) replaces punishment as the goal of sentencing.

I didn't read entire thread, but I thought it would be fascinating to hear your thoughts on a larger version - like the bombing of a pharmaceutical facility in the Sudan under the Clinton administration. Supposing complicity is ruled out, would you require torture or desire it for those most directly involved in orchestration/fumble supposing there were a few "innovators" involved and at the heart of the orchestration/stumble? Would it make a difference if they were "conductors" or "fumblers?"