I heard an excellent discussion about torture on the radio the other day with a guy who was an interrogator in Nam. He basically said aggressive interrogation and even light torture (less physical, more mental) are way more successful than any real torture or physical violence especially with people from the Middle East. He kind of implied that in order to be really good at torture you need to be a sick sob and not many Americans could ever do the kinds of torture that other countries do. He ended saying that although he had some regrets he thought he and the country did the right thing and that the policies regarding torture were right and acceptable but an ugly part of the system he wished didn’t exist.