# Bush - Torture saves lives **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 9, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112 "2010-11-09T23:49:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/81 "2010-11-12T01:54:05Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > I have seen many interrogators on Tv say that good intel comes from carefully cultivating a relationship and earning trust. > A person being tortured will say anything to make the pain stop. They will fill in the blanks with whatever you want to hear. It is not reliable. > Saddam gave a lot of info to the guy who was assigned to him. He was not tortured. Once you gain some trust, it is amazing how open they can become. A better example than television interviews would be that of [Hanns Scharff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff), also known as the “Master Interrogator”. Who was an extremely successful interrogator without so much as raising his voice, much less torturing people. And was so successful at winning prisoners over that his former prisoners testified on his behalf for his good treatment of them and his good character. But since _real_ interrogators torture people, I guess all that was due to the interference of his superiors, those well known humanitarians the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/82 "2010-11-12T02:27:32Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > …the bad guy’s rights shouldn’t supercede the rights of the victim, which after all are supposed to be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not torturing a bad guy has nothing, NOTHING, to do with the bad-guy’s rights. It is about being better than the bad guy. A torturer is a bad guy. As soon as you decide that it is OK to do bad things to bad people you become scum. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/83 "2010-11-12T03:22:53Z")
Nope, sorry. I couldn’t care less about being “better” than the bad guy. (Which is nonsense to begin with: _I_ didn’t kidnap the girl or plant the bomb, _he_ did.) What I care about (and what I think is better) is finding the missing girl or where the bomb is. Anybody who thinks it’s better to let innocent people die than to torture someone to keep it from happening is nuts. Absolutely fucking nuts. And furthermore, I’d wager just about any amount you’d care to mention that if it was you, or one of your family members or loved ones who was the one whose life would be saved, you’d change your tune right quick. It’s easy to moralize when it isn’t your ass that’s on the line. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/84 "2010-11-12T03:46:39Z")
Actually he may have. You are ,as always,declaring him 100 percent guilty. Ask Arar the Canadian who was tortured for the US and he was innocent. Ask all the young kids who have been dragged into Gitmo because we gave a financial bonus for people who ratted someone out. Torture an innocent and they will become an enemy. Torture someone who was leaning or neutral and you can guess what they will be like. Torture does not work. it just makes an angry person feel good superficially. But it has no good ending except on TV. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/85 "2010-11-12T04:12:03Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > _I_ didn’t kidnap the girl or plant the bomb, _he_ did.) No he didn’t. Someone told you he did, and maybe you believed them, or maybe you just think it’s OK to spill the blood of innocents to make you and yours _feel_ safer? This presumption of guilt thing on the part of pro-torture people is disturbing. I don’t think the founding fathers would approve. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/86 "2010-11-12T04:30:07Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Actually he may have. You are ,as always,declaring him 100 percent guilty. Ask Arar the Canadian who was tortured for the US and he was innocent. Ask all the young kids who have been dragged into Gitmo because we gave a financial bonus for people who ratted someone out. > Torture an innocent and they will become an enemy. Torture someone who was leaning or neutral and you can guess what they will be like. Torture does not work. it just makes an angry person feel good superficially. But it has no good ending except on TV. Bullshit. You show me a guy (and this of course presumes no doubt of guilt, as do all my remarks) who’s abducted a woman or a child but won’t tell where they are, or who’s involved in planting a bomb and won’t give up its location or who else is involved, and with the right kind of torture (and I don’t mean this namby-pamby waterboard shit) you’ll have an answer in minutes. And besides, I imagine it would rarely be necessary anyway because once the miscreant finds out he’s about to have a session with the thumbscrews or have his nuts put in a vice or other considerably more painful things I can think of, he’ll be blabbing like a teenager with a new cell phone. This would have a couple of other benefits as well. No more holding out on the location of murder victims in order to bargain for a reduced sentence, and, once the victim is located and the details of the murder become more clear, the information gained could very well play an important role in how long a sentence the bad guy gets and/or what happens when he goes in front of a parole board. But having said all this, I’m going to bow out of this thread now. The question of torture is like the question of abortion and the death penalty: you’re either for it or you’re against it, and if one objection gets shot down people simply come up with another one, and it can go on all night. Besides, I can’t think of anything more I could say to explain my thinking on the subject than what I’ve already said. > [@Squink](#): > > No he didn’t. > Someone told you he did, and maybe you believed them, or maybe you just think it’s OK to spill the blood of innocents to make you and yours feel safer? No, I quite clearly said earlier that I favor a system where a judge is presented with convincing evidence of the man’s guilt (and or where the bad guy has admitted guilt but is holding out for a lesser charge) before torture could proceed. > [@Squink](#): > > This presumption of guilt thing on the part of pro-torture people is disturbing. That would be because when we talk about it, the question of guilt has already been established. > [@Squink](#): > > I don’t think the founding fathers would approve. Oh, so now, after all the hooey we’ve been hearing from the left for years about how we have a living constitution and who cares about the founding fathers anyway and about how it’s a new day and age and they couldn’t possibly have forseen they questions that are arising now, you’re suddenly very concerned about what the founding fathers might think. They forbade cruel and unusual “punishment”, not cruel and unusual fact-finding. Mentally cruel and unusual tactics are used by the police all time during investigations, and I’m just saying that when guilt is not at question and a judge sees persuasive evidence that torture will yield life-saving information, another, physical, dimension should be brought into play. And now, like I said earlier in the post, I’m out. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/87 "2010-11-12T04:58:13Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And furthermore, I’d wager just about any amount you’d care to mention that if it was you, or one of your family members or loved ones who was the one whose life would be saved, you’d change your tune right quick. It’s easy to moralize when it isn’t your ass that’s on the line. You conveniently assume that all the people who say it doesn’t work very well are _lying_. No, I wouldn’t bother torturing someone for information no matter the situation because I know better than to bother. And besides, I’m not a monster. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Bullshit. You show me a guy (and this of course presumes no doubt of guilt, as do all my remarks) who’s abducted a woman or a child but won’t tell where they are, or who’s involved in planting a bomb and won’t give up its location or who else is involved, and with the right kind of torture (and I don’t mean this namby-pamby waterboard shit) you’ll have an answer in minutes. Actually waterboarding is more effective as torture than something like breaking bones or flaying skin. You can get anyone to say anything in a minute or two. Like any other torture technique what they say probably won’t be\* true\*, of course, but you can make them say what you want. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And besides, I imagine it would rarely be necessary anyway because once the miscreant finds out he’s about to have a session with the thumbscrews or have his nuts put in a vice or other considerably more painful things I can think of, he’ll be blabbing like a teenager with a new cell phone. And so will innocent people. And all will be more concerned with making up the desired lies than telling truths that will get them tortured. Or in killing themselves before being taken; again, innocent or guilty. And no, it won’t be rare; it will go on all the time, because that’s all you’ll have left. When you start torturing, just like in Iraq all your other intelligence sources dry up. No one wants to talk to torturers. No one even wants to get _near_ torturers. No one wants to risk others finding out he talks to torturers. And of course torturers are monsters; they’ll take every opportunity they have to torture people just for the fun of it. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > This would have a couple of other benefits as well. No more holding out on the location of murder victims in order to bargain for a reduced sentence, and, once the victim is located and the details of the murder become more clear, the information gained could very well play an important role in how long a sentence the bad guy gets and/or what happens when he goes in front of a parole board. Why bother? Just make up whatever “information” you like and skip the torture. Your victims will tell whatever lies you want anyway, so skip the middleman. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/88 "2010-11-12T05:17:14Z")
To paraphrase Molly Ivins, Starving Artist’s post probably sounded better in the original German. Jesus. How do you write that, not look back at what you’ve written and realize how monstrous you sound? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/89 "2010-11-12T05:22:27Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > That would be because when we talk about it, the question of guilt has already been established. Oh, it’s Ivory Tower Torture you’re talking about then, not anything that happens much in the real world. You know, the world in which we offered to pay people to find ‘evil-doers’ we could ship off to Guantanamo. > [@](#): > > Oh, so now, after all the hooey we’ve been hearing from the left for years … So you think us lefties should be willing to cave on the presumption of innocence just because some rightwing mob-du-jour is too frightened to care about the blood of innocents? It doesn’t work that way. You start slackin on the details declaring people guilty, and pretty soon you’ve got witch hunts. The founding fathers recognized that, but you seem to have forgotten it. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/90 "2010-11-12T05:34:12Z")
Could we please keep the hypothetical on track? The essential question is: If someone’s life is at stake, and torturing the miscreant would prevent their death, is that torture justified? > [@Raygun99](#): > > To paraphrase Molly Ivins, Starving Artist’s post probably sounded better in the original German. Jesus. How do you write that, not look back at what you’ve written and realize how monstrous you sound? Yeah, I’m a monster all right. I catch bugs in the house - even wasps - and set them free outside. This leads to much hilarity on the part of my family, but there you have it. I’m as humane as anyone, to a logical degree. But if someone is fuckin’ with innocent people’s lives, then all bets are off and you do what you have to do to prevent it. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/91 "2010-11-12T05:47:50Z")
What does being nice to insects have to do with the fact that you apparently really want to torture someone? As to your hypothetical, I present to you the Japanese concept of “[mu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_%28negative%29)”. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/92 "2010-11-12T05:51:09Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > What does being nice to insects have to do with the fact that you apparently really want to torture someone? Now you’re just being ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/93 "2010-11-12T05:54:14Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Could we please keep the hypothetical on track?. Bush didn’t engage in ‘hypothetical’, he engaged in torture. Whether that can be justified somewhere in cloud cuckoo land is simply an attempt at distraction from the facts on the ground. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/94 "2010-11-12T06:06:23Z")
This is how **Starving Artist** bows out. Its kind of like Cher’s Absolutely Positively Last, Final No, This Time I Really Mean It Farewell Tour… ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/95 "2010-11-12T06:12:56Z")
**Der Trihs** : Please answer my points or concede them. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/96 "2010-11-12T06:18:32Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > This is how Starving Artist bows out. Its kind of like Cher’s Absolutely Positively Last, Final No, This Time I Really Mean It Farewell Tour… Yeah, well, maybe. But I can’t get on the cover of [_Vanity Fair_](http://stylefrizz.com/201011/chers-vanity-fair-december-2010/), no matter how many comebacks I make. ☹ But that’s probably a good thing though. I look like hell in fishnet stockings. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/97 "2010-11-12T06:34:17Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Anybody who thinks it’s better to let innocent people die than to torture someone to keep it from happening is nuts. Absolutely fucking nuts. I may be nuts, but at least I am not a terrorist…or, worse, \ **Starving Artist**. ETA: Not only are people who don’t torture not scum, they are also MORE effective at getting information to save innocent lives than sadistic scum such as yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/98 "2010-11-12T06:47:33Z")
Ah shoot, I thought this was in the pit. If there are any newbs reading, know that what I just posted is not OK outside the pit. OK mods, do your job, I know I have it coming. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/99 "2010-11-12T07:25:10Z")
So Bush is admitting to having broke the law? Or is that retroactive immunity acting up again? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112/100 "2010-11-12T07:40:35Z")
In his new book, Bush says: > [@](#): > > In revealing the decision points that led him to choose waterboarding as an interrogation technique, Bush says, "CIA experts drew up a list of interrogation techniques. … At my direction, Department of Justice and CIA lawyers conducted a careful legal review. The enhanced interrogation program complied with the Constitution and all applicable laws, including those that ban torture. > > “There were two that I felt went too far, even if they were legal. I directed the CIA not to use them. Another technique was waterboarding, a process of simulated drowning. No doubt the procedure was tough, but medical experts assured the CIA that it did no lasting harm.” > > Bush further declares that the new techniques proved effective, yielding information on al Qaeda’s structure and operations, and leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, the logistical planner of the 9/11 attacks who was captured on the first anniversary of the attacks. So, no. Bush does not admit to having broken the law. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-torture-saves-lives/560112.md?page=6)