FEATURE: "How To Make Terrorists Talk," by Bobby Ghosh, Time (still an actual news magazine with actual reporting, can you believe it?), 8 June 2009.

Just like in the real world, the soft-kill of connecting beats the hard-kill of kinetics.

Beat the shit out of somebody and you just get more resistance.

But make the target see you as human beings, and he'll start talking instead of lecturing, as one American interrogator put it.

My favorite bit: the diabetic given sugarless cookies then caves in and spills all manner of beans.

Yes, we can all adhere to the holy grail scenario of the ticking nuke in Times Square, but for the other 99.999999999999999999% of reality, we can do better.

You know how the Saudis prefer to do it? They bring in the mothers--no kinetics required.