# Does torture work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 25, 2005, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770 "2005-06-25T04:37:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/41 "2005-06-26T02:19:44Z")
Torture works to extract information like bleach works to disinfect an open wound. You may get the end result you wanted, but it’s going to damage you as much as or more than it accomplishes your goal. ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/42 "2005-06-26T02:23:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Why do you assume that the torturer would be stupid and would go on insisting until he would get an answer that would only mislead him? In the hypothetical you were presented with, the point of this question was precisely to know whether the suspect actually knew something. Let’s say you have three Johns: A, B and C. John A knows where the guns are being hidden. John B and C are innocent schlubs hauled in a wider net. Each is asked to name what supplies the rebels have hidden in the village. John A says “Foodstuffs!”. John B says “Chemical weapons!”. John C says “Explosives!”. We know John A is lying, but how would the interrogator in this case actually know for sure? Especially if John A had been trained by the rebels to resist torture techniques. Should the interrogator demand again? What if John B accidentally stumbles on the “guns” answer first? What if John B knows what the rebels have hauled in, but doesn’t have a clue where the weapons have been stored? How will the interrogator know to believe John B’s statement? I personally feel that direct, versus subtle, interrogation is no better or worse for effectiveness. Obviously, however, all we’re going to end up getting are anecdotes. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/43 "2005-06-26T02:35:08Z")
It seems like one of those issues where a lot of prople are going to believe what they want to believe. If you hate Bush you can easily find someone to say that torture doesn’t work. And vv of course. My own sense of it is that the insiders are not going to let us in on all of their secrets, and there’s a real need for lots of disinformation. For instance if we pick up some terrorist because of a wiretap, we could say he was turned in by another terrorist. This protects the wiretap and confuses the bad guys. So there’s going to be some guesswork on this thread. Having said that my own processing of the info I’ve read tells me that it’s usually going to give something useful, but of course, not always. It would amaze me if it turned out that everyone is capable of enduring days or weeks of torture so they can avoid betraying their friends. Also you can fool some of the people… and all that. If it really never worked, or produced so much misinformation that it outweighed the good stuff, probably it would’ve been put out to pasture already. OTOH, torturers have to protect their jobs, just like everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/44 "2005-06-26T02:38:25Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Do you think the people who confessed to witchcraft thanks to torture were all guilty? I think the question itself is a strawman. Not all torture is the same as that used on the folks who confessed to be witches after all. To answer this question though…of course I don’t think that those who confessed to being witches under torture were in fact witches. I’ve already said that I think physical torture is pretty ineffective, especially the over the top abuse type. Not only is it evil but it doesn’t achieve the ends you are going for if you are trying to extract information. As I said though, not all things that are under the umbrella of ‘torture’ equal what was done at the Salem Witch trials, nor does the fact that this form of torture doesn’t work automatically discount all others. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > I was replying to xtisme’s “the claim that torture in any form at all does not work is extraordinary” Are you saying then that because the torturers did succeed in getting a confession, regardless if it was false, that then torture works? Sure it did in the sense that the church got a hold of the possessions of the executed, by golly it did work. Strawman. Sorry to use this trite phrase but it is. You are trying to coach the debate in a very narrow and self serving way by defining torture to be that used to extract confessions in the distant past. -XT -XT ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/45 "2005-06-26T02:43:45Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Torture works to extract information like bleach works to disinfect an open wound. You may get the end result you wanted, but it’s going to damage you as much as or more than it accomplishes your goal. The problem with that view is torture has been an integral part of government since government started. As I said, the US engaged in acts that would be considered 3rd world levels of torture up until the 1940s or so (beatings, electroshock, etc) [Carl Panzram](http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Carl-Panzram) wrote a book on his experiences in prison, I read it a few years ago and the descriptions of the sanctioned tortures in prison are no different than what we discovered in Iraq when we invaded. One instance he had was when he was placed in a bathtub by guards and shocked with a battery. Arguably acts which are considered the most human rights unfriendly activities of today’s world were common in all governments up until a few decades ago (on another note that reminds me of the fact that when Cuba was chastized for sending journalists to prison for 20 years for opposing the regime, that the US government send opposers to WW1 to prison for 20 years as well). It wasn’t until 1936 that the US supreme court ruled in Brown v. Mississippi that torture was not an acceptable method of extracting information from criminal suspects, and this was after the Mississippi supreme court ruled that it was acceptable. Anyway, point is that torture is quite normal. That hopefully is changing and now that people can taste a life w/o torture I doubt they’d ever be willing to go back. However I don’t believe it automatically leads to instability as it has always been a part of government. The governments of Egypt and Rome lasted for centuries and milleniums while practicing hardcore torture. I think you guys misunderstand how torture is used. It is used to force someone to start to give info which is then independently verified. If the communication turns out to be true then treatment improves, if it is untrue it gets worse. Its not like Salem or the USSR showtrials where all anyone cared about was a confession, irrelevant of the truth. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/46 "2005-06-26T02:45:42Z")
> [@Plan B](#): > > It seems like one of those issues where a lot of prople are going to believe what they want to believe. If you hate Bush you can easily find someone to say that torture doesn’t work. And vv of course. Care to reflect on the gross silliness you just typed here? One CAN despise torture even if one loves Bush. > [@](#): > > Also you can fool some of the people… and all that. If it really never worked, or produced so much misinformation that it outweighed the good stuff, probably it would’ve been put out to pasture already. OTOH, torturers have to protect their jobs, just like everyone else. As I already mentioned, it was profitable for the torturer then, like slavery (torture was an element for that peculiar institution too) it lasted for thousands of years until it was put out to pasture, torture should also. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/47 "2005-06-26T02:55:33Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > I think you guys misunderstand how torture is used. It is used to force someone to start to give info which is then independently verified. If the communication turns out to be true then treatment improves, if it is untrue it gets worse. Its not like Salem or the USSR showtrials where all anyone cared about was a confession, irrelevant of the truth. IIRC the changes that allowed torture to be considered and allegations of torture appeared to get worse on the way to the Iraq war, I am going to go on a limb and say it: we have an administration that does not care if the torture info tainted the intelligence of WMD and Al-queda connections to Iraq, notice that someone (and I think it was Chalabi’s buddies with a helping of wishful thinking in the administration) was “independently” verifying the info, things don’t happen in vacuum folks. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/48 "2005-06-26T03:08:55Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > I’m sure not going to accept the fallacy of [arguement from authority](http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/aa.htm) in this case. How much do you expect me to trust people who make their living causing pain to other human beings? I don’t think you got what I mean. If you, who (I assume) never tortured anybody can think about the possible shortcoming of torture, don’t you think that someone who’s accustomed to use it, and probably also trained before that, will be at least as able as you are to notice them and to use it in a thoughtful way? Except if you assume that any torturer will be a brainless fool. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/49 "2005-06-26T09:02:38Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Strawman. Sorry to use this trite phrase but it is. You are trying to coach the debate in a very narrow and self serving way by defining torture to be that used to extract confessions in the distant past. > > -XT > > -XT Calling strawmans does not help; here is what you sweepingly deduced: > [@](#): > > To me though the claim that torture in any form at all does not work is extraordinary…and for me to be convinced I’m going to need some extraordinary kind of proof that this is so. I just can not see why the proven ineffective torture of assumed witches can be dismissed as not relevant… Or it is only because you assume it does not happen today? You are not aware of people recently killed in Africa for witchcraft? Guess how did they get their confessions? As for how effective torture is nowadays I can grant you something: it is effective for other dastardly reasons: [http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050530&s=klein](http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050530&s=klein) > [@](#): > > This is torture’s true purpose: to terrorize–not only the people in Guantánamo’s cages and Syria’s isolation cells but also, and more important, the broader community that hears about these abuses. Torture is a machine designed to break the will to resist–the individual prisoner’s will and the collective will. > > This is not a controversial claim. In 2001 the US NGO Physicians for Human Rights published a manual on treating torture survivors that noted: “perpetrators often attempt to justify their acts of torture and ill treatment by the need to gather information. Such conceptualizations obscure the purpose of torture…The aim of torture is to dehumanize the victim, break his/her will, and at the same time, set horrific examples for those who come in contact with the victim. In this way, torture can break or damage the will and coherence of entire communities.” > > Yet despite this body of knowledge, torture continues to be debated in the United States as if it were merely a morally questionable way to extract information, not an instrument of state terror. But there’s a problem: No one claims that torture is an effective interrogation tool–least of all the people who practice it. Torture “doesn’t work. There are better ways to deal with captives,” CIA director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 16. And a recently declassified memo written by an FBI official in Guantánamo states that extreme coercion produced “nothing more than what FBI got using simple investigative techniques.” The Army’s own interrogation field manual states that force “can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.” > > And yet the abuses keep on coming–Uzbekistan as the new hot spot for renditions; the “El Salvador model” imported to Iraq. And the only sensible explanation for torture’s persistent popularity comes from a most unlikely source. Lynndie England, the fall girl for Abu Ghraib, was asked during her botched trial why she and her colleagues had forced naked prisoners into a human pyramid. “As a way to control them,” she replied. > > Exactly. As an interrogation tool, torture is a bust. But when it comes to social control, nothing works quite like torture. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/50 "2005-06-26T09:21:26Z")
However **xtisme** , if you are really claiming here that torture is effective in some forms, it is you who is narrowing the debate. It is you who has to show the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/51 "2005-06-26T11:39:31Z")
Proof of ineffective torture is not proof that torture is ineffective. Just as showing that Bill O’Reilly is scumbag does not show that the republican party is wrong. Obviously, when torture is used incorrectly, it’s going to be worse than useless. Even some people back in the 1700’s realised what a farce the witch trials are. The American government today does not use torture to gain confessions. It seems to me, torture is useful for at least 1 class of information, information in which: a. The subjects knows the information b. You know the subject knows the information c. The subject knows that you know the subject knows the information. If all 3 conditions are fulfulled, then all you need to do is randomly sprinkle questions of which you know the answer with questions of which you don’t know the answer. As the subject has no way of telling which is which, the safest policy is to just tell the truth in order to avoid being beaten. In other cases, the use of torture becomes a bit more tricky. If you don’t know if the subject knows the information (ie: you round up 10 johns and one of them is probably a terrorist) then it becomes much harder to effectively apply torture which is what people have been focusing on more in this thread. But assuming the above 3 conditions hold, then it seems torture would be a pretty effective way of getting information. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/52 "2005-06-26T12:12:18Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > :Proof of ineffective torture is not proof that torture is ineffective. And what you post gave what evidence? > [@](#): > > The American government today does not use torture to gain confessions. [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1257847.htm](http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1257847.htm) > [@](#): > > US allows use of evidence gained by torture > US military review panels can use evidence obtained through torture in deciding the fate of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the US Government has conceded. > > Lawyers acting for Australian detainees in Cuba have called on the Australian Government to renounce the practice. > > About 70 years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled evidence gained through torture was inadmissible. > > Deputy associate Attorney-General, Brian Boyle, has told the District Court in Washington DC, that the Guantanamo review panels are allowing such evidence. > > Two Australians, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, are being held at Guantanamo Bay. > > The lawyer for Australian detainee David Hicks, Stephen Kenny, says Saddam Hussein’s regime was criticised for human rights abuses against defectors and the US Government should not be using the same tactics in the trial of Guantanamo Bay detainees. > > “For the Americans to start saying they’ll do this, essentially what they are doing is behaving as a third world dictatorship and frankly is a very great concern,” he said. > > Mr Kenny says the decision is more proof that his client will not get a fair trial in Guantanamo Bay. > > He is again calling on the Australian Government to bring Hicks home and allow him to defend himself against allegations of war crimes before an Australian court. > [@](#): > > But assuming the above 3 conditions hold, then it seems torture would be a pretty effective way of getting information. \*\*Assuming \*\* the intelligence was good before hand, however, it has already been certified that bad intelligence lead us to Iraq (evidence is appearing that it was just not an honest mistake) of course to be sure, to find the lapses one will have to independently investigate how the information was gathered. Are we not even curious? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/53 "2005-06-26T12:31:48Z")
Obviously torture in witchcraft cases would be a situation where none of the victims has the information the torturer is seeking. None of them could honestly say they really were granted magical powers by Satan. But the purpose of this torture was to gain confessions not information. A torturer isn’t concerned if a confession is true or false, but he is going to care if information is true or false. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/54 "2005-06-26T13:12:16Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And what you post gave what evidence? Okay, lets work through a game theory example. You’ve captured a terrorist and your certain than all 3 pre-conditions hold. You have 10 questions that you want to ask him, 5 of which you know the answer, 5 of which you don’t. The answers to the questions can either be completely correct or incorrect and the terrorist doesn’t know which pieces of information you know and which you don’t. You tell him that you are going to ask him all 10 questions, if he gets them all right, he will be treated well and given medical aid. If he answers at least one wrong, then he will be beaten. The terrorist has 3 strategies, he can either consistantly lie, he can randomly tell the truth or he can always tell the truth. If he consistantly lies, then obviously he is going to get a beating so he this is clearly not a viable strategy for him. If he randomly tells the truth, then he has a 1 in 32 chance of getting the answers right to the 5 known questions in which case, he has fooled the interregator which is his goal. Or he can answer all of them correctly and be guarenteed to be treated properly. Thus, in order to fool the guard, he has to, on average, be willing to endure 31 beatings. Assuming our terrorist does not have that resolve, he will spill the beans and we now know 10 verifiable facts. Using these 10 verifiable facts, we can then go on to terrorist 2 and use these to crack him. Terrorist 2’s chances of fooling the interregator are now 1 in 1024 and, with even more facts, we can make the chances of being fooled even lower. Granted, this is assuming we have perfect knowledge and we never make any mistakes. However, with a bit more sophisticated mathematics, we can accomodate a wide range of uncertainties. The basics boil down to essentially a terrorist can either choose to tell the complete truth or endure on average n beatings where n is a very large number. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/55 "2005-06-26T15:10:47Z")
I think **Shalmanese** ’s analysis is entirely false. It flies in the face of basic psychology. The majority of people (torture victims) are impressionable and will soon figure out what the torturer wants to hear. They will start giving up the names of innocent people. Plus, the assumption that “we have perfect knowledge and we never make any mistakes” is grossly off the mark. Torturers more commonly know nothing of the culture of the victim, but they will soon start _believing_ they do. Then, the torturers will start confirming and reinforcing their incorrect beliefs out of the torture victims. [Joe Ryan Abu Ghraib diary](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joe_Ryan_Abu_Ghraib_diary_April_2004) > [@](#): > > Scott and I put together an analyst package consisting of detailed association matrixes and interrogation highlights to put these guys all together. The command was thrilled and once again the CACI folks have set a high standard for the young soldiers to follow. Specialist Spencer overheard me saying one of the names. About ten minutes later, she came over with some information from one of her interrogat ions a week ago and we found a link. It is fun to see the excitement in the room when stuff like this happens. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without the picture, so when you get pieces to fit, it is great. > (…) > My smuggler friend just keeps on talking. I have nick-named him Han Solo since he is a smuggler extraordinaire. I have received information regarding the entire network from start to finish on how foreign fighters are coming into Iraq; who is paying for it; how they communicate; how they get their weapons once here; and how they move to their target locations. This will never make the papers, but it sure is exciting to know the information. Reminder: how’s the quality of the intel the Americans are getting on Iraq? How are they doing with the fight against the insurgents? [Does torture work?](http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/21/torture_algiers/index_np.html) > [@](#): > > In fact, no rank-and-file soldier has related a tale of how he personally, through timely interrogation, produced decisive information that stopped a ticking bomb. “As the pain of interrogation began,” observed torturer Jean-Pierre Vittori, “they talked abundantly, citing the names of the dead or militants on the run, indicating locations of old hiding places in which we didn’t find anything but some documents without interest.” Detainees also provided names of their enemies – true information, but without utility to the French. > > The FLN military men had also been told, when forced to talk, to give up the names of their counterparts in the rival organization, the more accommodationist MNA (National Algerian Movement). Not very knowledgeable in the subtleties of Algerian nationalism, the French soldiers helped the FLN liquidate the infrastructure of the more cooperative organization and tortured MNA members, driving them into extreme opposition. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/56 "2005-06-26T15:18:21Z")
Let me add that I will stop short of stating that toture produces no information al all in any case, ever. Torture works better the more impressionable the victim and the better informed the torturer. I would go so far as to say that torture would work “relatively well” to catch amateur small-time crooks and cookie thiefs; it works worst of all to catch hardened terrorists of a foreign culture. I find this believable: > **[The Dark Art of Interrogation](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/)** > > The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion > [@](#): > > On September 27 of last year a Frankfurt law student kidnapped an eleven-year-old boy named Jakob von Metzler, whose smiling face appeared in a box alongside the story. The kidnapper had covered Jakob’s mouth and nose with duct tape, wrapped the boy in plastic, and hidden him in a wooded area near a lake. The police captured the suspect when he tried to pick up ransom money, but the suspect wouldn’t reveal where he had left the boy, who the police thought might still be alive. So the deputy police chief of Frankfurt, Wolfgang Daschner, told his subordinates to threaten the suspect with torture. According to the suspect, he was told that a “specialist” was being flown in who would “inflict pain on me of the sort I had never experienced.” The suspect promptly told the police where he’d hidden Jakob, who, sadly, was found dead. I find the following unacceptable (what if the guys had been innocent?) and also factually doubtful, but you can make up your own mind: > **[A Nasty Business](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/01/a-nasty-business/302379/)** > > Gathering "good intelligence" against terrorists is an inherently brutish enterprise, involving methods a civics class might not condone. Should we care? > [@](#): > > “By going through the process of laws,” Thomas patiently explained, as a parent or a teacher might speak to a bright yet uncomprehending child, “you cannot fight terrorism.” Terrorism, he believed, could be fought only by thoroughly “terrorizing” the terrorists - that is, inflicting on them the same pain that they inflict on the innocent. Thomas had little confidence that I understood what he was saying. I was an academic, he said, with no actual experience of the life-and-death choices and the immense responsibility borne by those charged with protecting society from attack. > > Accordingly, he would give me an example of the split-second decisions he was called on to make. At the time, Colombo was on “code red” emergency status, because of intelligence that the LTTE was planning to embark on a campaign of bombing public gathering places and other civilian targets. Thomas’s unit had apprehended three terrorists who, it suspected, had recently planted somewhere in the city a bomb that was then ticking away, the minutes counting down to catastrophe. > > The three men were brought before Thomas. He asked them where the bomb was. The terrorists - highly dedicated and steeled to resist interrogation - remained silent. Thomas asked the question again, advising them that if they did not tell him what he wanted to know, he would kill them. They were unmoved. So Thomas took his pistol from his gun belt, pointed it at the forehead of one of them, and shot him dead. The other two, he said, talked immediately; the bomb, which had been placed in a crowded railway station and set to explode during the evening rush hour, was found and defused, and countless lives were saved. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/57 "2005-06-26T15:33:29Z")
> [@Frankenstein Monster](#): > > I think **Shalmanese** ’s analysis is entirely false. It flies in the face of basic psychology. The majority of people (torture victims) are impressionable and will soon figure out what the torturer wants to hear. They will start giving up the names of innocent people. Plus, the assumption that “we have perfect knowledge and we never make any mistakes” is grossly off the mark. Torturers more commonly know nothing of the culture of the victim, but they will soon start _believing_ they do. Then, the torturers will start confirming and reinforcing their incorrect beliefs out of the torture victims. What does culture and belief have to do with anything? I’m only concerned here with verifiable facts and hard data. A torture victim, assuming he is a terrorist, can only say 2 things, something which is true or something which is false. Theres no “what he wants to hear” stuff in here. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/58 "2005-06-26T15:41:58Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > …assuming he is a terrorist… Your margin-of-error is showing… ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/59 "2005-06-26T16:38:57Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > What does culture and belief have to do with anything? I’m only concerned here with verifiable facts and hard data. A torture victim, assuming he is a terrorist, can only say 2 things, something which is true or something which is false. Theres no “what he wants to hear” stuff in here. Huh? I don’t even understand the question. Culture has everything to do with everything. If the torturers don’t understand the culture, they will ask the wrong questions, misinterpret the answers, and in general get the wrong idea entirely. As for “what he wants to hear”, I am arguing that that is an essential phenomenon which happens during interrogation under torture. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/60 "2005-06-26T16:50:03Z")
It did with my kids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770.md?page=4)