Intelligence of Orcs

[Firefoot]

There have been a couple of things that have aroused my interest in this topic. One is that there seem to have been a lot of topics about orcs lately. The other is that I was talking to someone the other day and they said something to the extent of "If you rated orcs' intelligence it would be in the negative." But as I thought about this I realized it probably isn't true. For example, listening to, er... reading over Shagrat and Gorbag's conversation, they seem to have definite mental capabilities - not what I would call stupid. Another example is Merry and Pippin's captors. Those Uruks, especially Ugluk and Grishnakh, show some signs of "smartness". In fact some of the things that orcs do are downright cunning.

What do you think? Where do orcs land on an intelligence scale? Go ahead - if you disagree with me, say something.