Of course, any sentient human being that isn't a blind apologist for this administration (or so afraid of the big scary Muslim that he hides from his own shadow) knows the answer to that.

And then there is David Rivkin...

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When oh when will we be spared these chickenhawk little scaredy-cats in serious discussions? Actually, if it wasn't for these Bush apologists who have neither military experience nor intelligence (in every sense of the word) opining on military intelligence, there would be NO discussion on the legality or morality of "enhanced interrogation techniques" as they like to call it (or torture, for those of us in the reality-based community).

Listen to Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift (who, I might add, has both experience in the military and gathering intelligence, and who effectively lost his career in shaming the Bush Administration with the Hamdan case) make the point that besides being immoral, torture simply does not work:

...To me, it's unfathomable that we are up against the line. You know, again, looking back at WWII, what history's taught us, what we found is the reliable means of getting intelligence, at least in the context of a war, are using those things that build rapport with the person. That they find out you're not the ogre they've been told, they begin to question the people who are leading them. And eventually, that leads to actionable intelligence and it's reliable. See, that's the real problem with anything that's coercive. When you force somebody to talk, you cannot count on what they tell you. And in that case, I think it really is an unreliable form of interrogation and again, it's why we don't use it in court, is because it's not reliable data.

And Rivkin's response? The big scary "bad guys" are out to get us! You can't be nice to them! How can anyone take a grown man seriously who uses such cartoonish and vague scare tactics?