There are alot of very good points made in this thread. Throughout this thread I see 2 main "Camps" if you will. I see one that says torture is wrong, and the other says that it should be done, but only if necessary or as payback. All of the points are valid. My question is this. "Barring the "civilian" issues such as torturing criminals, as defined by the laws of our respective countries, Hasn't history shown that wars are won when you adapt to the fighting styles of the country you are fighting in? Example. During the French and Indian war in the US, (when we were still England's colonies), The English and the Colonists got their arses handed to them on a silver platter. Why, cause they didn't adapt to the fighting styles of the inhabitants of the area. It is the same in modern day. We let the idiots kill over 3000 of our civilian, and we are worried about theirs? We have turned into a bunch of weak-arsed pansies. No wonder we get laughed at and our words carry no weight. I don't advocate torture, unless there is an extreme need for it (as in the case that someone's life depends on the info and there isn't time to "befriend" the captive. Other than that, I agree with the statement that honey attracts more flies than does vinegar. It may seem that I ranted and raved about 9-11 and our hankling of it, but in my mind, war and torture are synonymous. Think of the mental torture of the mothers whos children don't come home. Think of the people whos minds and lives are affected by the actions of one man who wanted to torture a nation. My answer my be vague. Its because I intend for it to be. The question can only be answered by the circumstances one finds themselves placed in. And, if the life of a person depended on the information to be gleaned from a captive, I would not hesitate to make him so miserable, that he would beg to give the info up. Im not a sick man, just someone who doesn't d*ck around when it comes to human lives.....Before I get flamed, let me clarify that the captive would be one that forfeighted his "rights" as a human when he decided to violate another's "rights", and I would be damned sure that he was responsible for it too.