[mburbank]

"Spies, traitors and torture. "

I find that patently absurd. The enigma machine was greatly responsible for winning WWII and is intelligence and interception. But it's more your idea that torture is an integral part of victory in war.

If what you say is true, you should be able to find me dozens of examples of the use of torture leading to victory in war. I challenge you to find me one. Not that I think you can'tg but off the top of my head, I don't recall anything from my admittedly distant college and high school days talking about torture yielding any sort of significant results. Torture is a terror tool. People are afraid of an enemy that tortures. In addition, people like to torture other people. From Vlad the Impaler to Hitler and their respective armies, torture is a popular sport. If you want to argue that terror is an effective weapon in wars arsenal, I'll give you that hands down. But that torture has some sort of practical knowledge gathering function? I await examples.