Hmmm, not sure we're hitting the ten-ring in this matter: The definition of torture in the U.N. policy at discussion is not quite firm. If you examine the makeup of the U.N. voters, you may find a preponderance of small countries who are the worst torture and crimes-against-humanity offenders the planet has seen since the early 1940's. Now, as to the subject of getting information from combatants or other prisoner opponents: Let's say six of us in this thread capture a bada$$ (our definition, of course, not his) that we know has information we need. If we need it like yesterday we have no time, so now comes the medic to do his magic. No torture here, unless you think a sanitary needle ***** is torture. But let's say we have a day or so grace in our immediate need for the information he has. No bars, no cuffs, no roughstuff... we make sure he can't get away easily and has no weapons, and we're all fairly trained in martial arts so his level of empty-handed training doesn't concern us (besides, we can tell from the way he walks and moves if he is trained to any level of in martial arts) so here's what we six do; We relax the mood, sit around, share water, chow, smokes, talk about (made-up) family and home, laugh at the fools that start wars, bitch about having to be out here in this miserable environment, have a small toast all around to love and world peace, more snacks, more toasts, laugh, back-slaps, more toasts... Of course, we're filling our glasses from the flask with the iced tea, and his is getting filled from the Jack Daniel, same color in the glass as our sun tea. Before long we're all seven buddies from way back and the fools who start wars with their brothers are the enemy. There are no secrets between friends on the battlefield. This is way too simple because of space, but you may get the idea. Physical torture breeds immediate resistance, the same as mental deprivement. Soldiers are trained from the rookie stage to deal as well as they can with physical and mental torture and deprivement. They even practice personal deprivation and physical limits. They are not usually ready mentally or physically to be met with the opposite of what they were warned about. PsyOps is not always understood by everyone, including some of the people we hire to practice the art. You have to either know the enemy intimately or gently probe to see what will work and what will not work. Force, deprivation and threats of death will never work with religious zealots of any type whether defending the walls of Qumran in first-century history, the deserts or mountains of this century or on some remote planet in the century after this one. But back to the thread; If I were making the decision, I'd be highly suspicious of the motives of the U.N. in it's wanting to have carteBlanc to any of our institutions, which do not limit visits to only "prisons". Remember, just a few weeks ago our President withdrew his predecessor's signature to the U.N. Criminal Court (take a look at the makeup of that one!) having primary jurisdiction over our military members. And May God Bless him for that one!