Why not torture?

[I Am The Scum]

What I view as wishful thinking is the "Torture never ever works therefore we can be good and not pay any cost for doing so". That sounds a little unrealistic.

Unrealistic? Hmm... I thought it sounded a little more strawmanny, actually. To each is own, I suppose.

 

[Lithrael]

The torturer will eventually find out if the information was right or not, and if it's made clear that if it is found to be false, the torture will continue, they are much less effective.

Do you have any reason to believe that a person being tortured, even if they completely believed what was being 'made clear', is going to be considering the future in this way? That is, are they even capable of considering the future under such duress, and if they are, are they not willing to take that on in return for 'winning'?

A person who is given the choice between betraying their fellows or jumping off a cliff might well change their mind on the way down, but it no longer matters at that point. Blowing off the threat of future torture is a bit like that. They might well know that they will be tortured in the future and that it will be intolerable THEN, but delayed consequences can make one very brave.

 

[Mirrorglass]

How will the torturer find out ? How long will it take ? Will it take too long for the information to be useful ?

It depends on the case, of course. I never did claim torture should be used in situations where it isn't useful. I did claim there can be situations where it is useful.

Example 1, Person 1 is being tortured to find out who else is involved in a plot. Person 1 finally names Person 2. Person 2 is grabbed and denies their involvement. Person 2 is tortured to find out the "truth" and eventually says that they were. You still have no idea whether it's the truth, only two admissions extracted under torture

Yes, that is using torture to determine the guilt of a person, not even attempting to save any lives, so it's nothing at all like what I've described, and indeed useless. But no matter how many bad uses to torture you can think of, it won't be an argument against there being good ones.

Example 2, You torture someone to find out where the enemy troop concentrations are. They give you the wrong information and your troops walk into an ambush. Sure you find out that the information was wrong but the thing you were trying to prevent actually happens anyway

And that is an example of an idiot using torture-gained information as if it were established fact, despite the clear risk. Again, are you attempting to prove that in no situation, ever, can torture be reliably used? Whether you are or not, these examples are pointless.

I never claimed that torture NEVER provides reliable information but as the proportion of reliable evidence falls, the signal to noise ratio also falls. How unreliable should intelligence be before you decide not to act based upon it.

Fairly reliable, of course. And it depends on the action. Believe it or not, if a prisoner of war gives as a location he claims to be the enemy base, there are other alternatives besides sending troops to blindly charge there and ignore the information entirely.

I am claiming that there are situations where torture can be used to gain information, useful and reliable enough that there it can give a clear advantage. Are you questioning this claim?

After all, faulty intelligence led to the invasion of Iraq.

I think you're conflating two different meanings of "intelligence" there.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Do you have any reason to believe that a person being tortured, even if they completely believed what was being 'made clear', is going to be considering the future in this way? That is, are they even capable of considering the future under such duress, and if they are, are they not willing to take that on in return for 'winning'?

A person who is given the choice between betraying their fellows or jumping off a cliff might well change their mind on the way down, but it no longer matters at that point. Blowing off the threat of future torture is a bit like that. They might well know that they will be tortured in the future and that it will be intolerable THEN, but delayed consequences can make one very brave.

Are you saying that torture makes a person incapable of considering a future where they won't be tortured, yet won't affect their loyalties towards their fellows? Not to mention we're talking about the general claim that torture can sometimes be effective. It's an unwarranted assumption that the target will always be a highly trained terrorist, and that giving up the information would mean betraying anyone. We could as well be talking about a solitary kidnapper who's refusing to divulge the location of his still alive victim. There's nothing to be "won" in that case, and no-one to betray.

And anyway, it's not like we're talking about throwing terrorists off a cliff. If the torturee gives us wrong information, then changes his mind a day later, then it sure as heck does matter.

It also occurs to me that you may have somewhat of a narrow view on what torture is. Professional interrogation isn't just beating a man up or giving him electric shocks. Continuous discomfort, cold, hunger, solitude, hostility and being confined adds up to a vast amount of stress that plays a large part in effective interrogation. Many of these are used, to a lesser degree, in perfectly legal interrogations. "Torture" simply means taking the methods further, violating the target's human rights even more. Simple shouting and physical violence isn't particularly effective, sure - that's why it's only done on television.

 

[JihadJane]

have they been convicted of crimes?

what if they have no information that can actually save lives?

I only support water-boarding, of high-value suspects, with a doctor present and for a very limited duration.

and btw, even convicted felons have civil and human rights.

I thought you were against violence:

no. violence is not acceptable.

Do US doctors not take the Hippocratic Oath?



Would it have been acceptable to torture George Bush (with a doctor present, and for a short duration) in order to get him to tell the truth? Think how many lives that could have saved.

 

[JihadJane]

A UK newspaper feature writer volunteered to undergo the procedure:

[He] was able to endure the procedure for only 12 seconds and said that he would have told his captors "anything" if the simulation had been genuine. He wrote: "This is no 'interrogation technique' but torture pure and simple with no place in a civilised society. I would have told my interrogator anything they wanted to hear to make it stop."

Sun criticised over 'irresponsible' waterboarding video

 

[Quad4_72]

It seems there are many here who are unfamiliar with interrogation techniques, and how torture is actually applied. Those that say "Well the information will not be accurate." or "The prisoner will tell you anything to make it stop" simply don't understand how interrogation works. Remember, professional interrogators undergo a whole lot of schooling to do what they do.

For example, you don't just throw a guy on a board and start pouring water on his face and say "Tell me where the bad guys are!" Of course you won't get any useful information that way. You start out using softer approaches, and more conventional interrogation techniques. You ask questions you already know the answers to, to see which ones they lie about. You look for the subtle differences in body posture, sweating, which direction their eyes look when they think, etc. Before going into any interrogation, you have a carefully laid out plan of what happened in the previous interrogation and how you are going to frame the next one, attempting to catch the prisoner in their own lie. "Stress position" can be used, such as making a prisoner squat for long periods of time, having them hold their arms in awkward angles, making them do push ups, etc. This helps break a prisoner down to where they cannot concentrate normally and are more susceptible to either break or be caught in their own lie.

One thing to keep in mind is Al Qaida and especially the higher ranking members are extensively trained in counter-interrogation methods. They have our manuals and know the kinds of approaches we are going to take. That's why the interrogator must be very creative and have well thought out approaches. The stuff I just wrote about is very general, and there are many, many other techniques that get much more in depth and take a much longer period of time.

I would imagine that KSM was extremely good at counter-interrogation techniques. He was probably very well trained and had lots of experience with evading questions and techniques used by American interrogators. That is why the decision to implement water boarding was most likely used. Like I said, you don't just go right to water boarding.

Another thing to keep in mind with information extracted from a prisoner is that interrogators know better then to take what is said as gospel and the truth. There is another whole process for determining whether or not information is valid. Whenever a prisoner gives you information, you always verify. If a prisoner is giving you faulty information, you change your technique up and try something else.

For example, if you were using the "Fear up" technique in which you plant feelings of fear in a prisoner by behaving in an overpowering manner, even throwing things across the room, but still leading that prisoner to believe you were the key to getting out of that situation, and he fed you a bunch of lies, you would switch your technique. You may switch it up to "Fear down" or "We know all" or something of that sort.

So the point being here, interrogators know how to get the useful information out of someone and using more harsh techniques such as water boarding on particularly difficult prisoners such as KSM can indeed be effective, as seen with the information that was extracted from him.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I hope I never have to make the decision.
Because I might.
And then I would have to live with myself.
Or I might not.

 

[GlennB]

So the point being here, interrogators know how to get the useful information out of someone and using more harsh techniques such as water boarding on particularly difficult prisoners such as KSM can indeed be effective, as seen with the information that was extracted from him.

And after waterboarding him 183 times, that must have resulted in an awful lot of information.

p.s. please do tell what information actually was extracted from him. It's hard to research the details, but you seem to know.

 

[fishbob]

It depends on the case, of course. I never did claim torture should be used in situations where it isn't useful. I did claim there can be situations where it is useful.

For this to be practical, we will need a core group of skilled torturers, able to travel on a moments notice.

Jobs for Americans !!!

/sarcasm off. again.

Whether useful or not, our laws and our civilized society have deemed torture to be illegal. Stealing could be useful in some situations, as could extortion, trespass, or drunk driving. But such situations would be few and far between. The consequences of allowing those things because they might be useful far outweighs any benefit from that potential utility.

 

[Mirrorglass]

For this to be practical, we will need a core group of skilled torturers, able to travel on a moments notice.

Jobs for Americans !!!

/sarcasm off. again.

Whether useful or not, our laws and our civilized society have deemed torture to be illegal. Stealing could be useful in some situations, as could extortion, trespass, or drunk driving. But such situations would be few and far between. The consequences of allowing those things because they might be useful far outweighs any benefit from that potential utility.

Only if you assume our only options are to ban something entirely or allow it unconditionally.

The police are allowed to seize my possessions, threaten me with jailtime if I don't witness against my crime partner and search my premises against my will, in certain specific circumstances. If I drive drunk to get a friend who's bleeding to a hospital, I most likely won't be charged. These exceptions to rules haven't lead to wanton theft, trespassing, extortion and drunk driving, so why do you assume torture would be different?

 

[fuelair]

Take pleasure in torturing others who take pleasure in torturing others. Turtles all the way down.

Missed the part where I said I took pleasure in it. It is simply necessary and right, not pleasurable. My pleasures are in much different areas.

 

[fuelair]

Unless they get the job of state torturer.

And the "state torturer" would be torturing the type of people I mentioned as the victims I would be concerned about because???

A cute aim at wit, but not thought out well.

 

[fishbob]

Only if you assume our only options are to ban something entirely or allow it unconditionally.

The police are allowed to seize my possessions, threaten me with jailtime if I don't witness against my crime partner and search my premises against my will, in certain specific circumstances. If I drive drunk to get a friend who's bleeding to a hospital, I most likely won't be charged. These exceptions to rules haven't lead to wanton theft, trespassing, extortion and drunk driving, so why do you assume torture would be different?

You don't get a pass because enforcement lets a drunk driving incident slide. You just got lucky that time. Police following due process are not engaged in theft or extortion. You miss the point, most likely deliberately.

Your exceptions to rules have not lead to anything. These things as well a torture happen and they are prosecuted because we as a society see the harm, the damage caused by these acts.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Okay, that's it


Bring... the Comfy Chair!

 

[The Don]

It seems there are many here who are unfamiliar with interrogation techniques, and how torture is actually applied. Those that say "Well the information will not be accurate." or "The prisoner will tell you anything to make it stop" simply don't understand how interrogation works. Remember, professional interrogators undergo a whole lot of schooling to do what they do.

You're right, I have not received interrogation training. On the other hand, people who have, notably in the UK military HAVE expressed the opinion that information extracted under torture is unreliable.

 

[Mirrorglass]

You don't get a pass because enforcement lets a drunk driving incident slide. You just got lucky that time. Police following due process are not engaged in theft or extortion. You miss the point, most likely deliberately.

Yes, they do. There is no difference. The police have been given the right to do things that are illegal to individuals, in order to protect the general public. Entirely analogously, they could be given the right to use torture on suspects in special cases.

In fact, the police do have such a right; interrogation techniques used by the police are meant to cause discomfort and even low level physical pain. It is only a matter of scale; usually, violence requiring physical contact isn't allowed. But even if it were, the nature of the situation wouldn't change.

Saying that the police following the process aren't engaged in theft or extortion is true - but only because we have different names for those things when they are done by officials. We could call torture administered by the police "heavy interrogation"; if a law was passed, making it legal, we probably would. Would you then accept that the police were not, in fact, engaged in torture, just as they aren't engaged in theft and extortion?

Your exceptions to rules have not lead to anything. These things as well a torture happen and they are prosecuted because we as a society see the harm, the damage caused by these acts.

Indeed. My problem is that in certain cases, we as a society willfully refuse to see the benefit.

 

[JihadJane]

...

So the point being here, interrogators know how to get the useful information out of someone and using more harsh techniques such as water boarding on particularly difficult prisoners such as KSM can indeed be effective, as seen with the information that was extracted from him.

What information?

 

[tsig]

How do we differentiate between these "the best of the good" torturers and the "evil forces" torturers.

How do we differentiate between these "the best of the good" soldiers and the "evil forces" soldiers?

After all, these soldiers are running around putting bullets in people, when they're not throwing grenades at them or dropping large amounts of high explosives on them.

Last time I checked, shooting people or blowing them up was way more horrible than waterboarding them, just as a simple matter of life expectancy and/or future quality of life for the victim.

Please don't tell me you've got soldiering all figured out, but not interrogation.

Funny, I don't see the word soldier in my post. Are you saying that all soldiers are torturers?

 

[tsig]

And the "state torturer" would be torturing the type of people I mentioned as the victims I would be concerned about because???

A cute aim at wit, but not thought out well.

Why do you think you won't be the victim of the state torturer?