# 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:** 10\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/81 "2005-06-26T20:27:40Z")
One element that usually must be present for torture to work is the the element of the unknown. For example, if you blindfold a person, strap a band around their arm and rub their arm with rubbing alchohol, in order for the torture to work the person must have their imagination run away with them. They must not have any indication of what exactly the person is doing or planning to do. ---
**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, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/82 "2005-06-26T20:52:41Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > I think we’re only likely to hear one side of the issue on this. People are far more likely to say “I was involved in illegal torture and I now regret it because it didn’t work” than “I was involved in illegal torture and I regret nothing because it was very effective”… A former french officer during the Algeria war did so in a book that raised a shitstorm in France a couple years ago. He was eventually sentenced, not for the tortures (it was covered by an amnesty) but for advocating torture. So, if you want to hear the side saying “I was involved in illegal torture and it works” and can read french, you could try : “Services spéciaux, Algérie 1955-1957”, by the general Aussaresses, former coordinator of the military intelligence services in Algeria. In fiction, this is also illustrated in “The battle of Algiers”, depicting barely disguised actual french officers who do win the battle, though not the war, by resorting to torture. ---
**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, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/83 "2005-06-26T21:04:35Z")
I would ad that in my opinion, [“the battle of Algiers”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058946/) is a must-see, espcially in the current athmosphere, since it depicts events now unfortunately extremely familiar (an occupying force in a hostile country, terrorists planting bombs in cafes and other public places…). ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/84 "2005-06-27T01:14:21Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Yes, that’s why I’ve made it clear that all 3 conditions must hold for this technique to be valid. But say you capture someone hiding in a terrorist bunker surrounded by multiple RPG’s and a terrorist training manual… you can be pretty sure they’re a terrorist then. You can assume they’re a terrorist … or one of the terrorists’ captives who’s been so traumatized that they don’t have sense enough to flee the coop after the terrorists do … or maybe they’re a low-level terrorist who don’t know a hell of a lot … just that Allah is great and they’re gonna get to blow up some 'Mericans. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/85 "2005-06-27T01:36:29Z")
Actually, the question “Does torture work” is EXTREMELY loaded. We can assume that only governments should be allowed to use torture, if anyone is allowed to use it at all. That is, no one is seriously advocating that private individuals – pyschopaths and such – should be allowed to use torture. I don’t think anyone is advocating that even the largest corporation – say, Halliburton – should be allowed to advocate torture for its corporate purposes. So the real question is, “Should governments be allowed to use torture?” Now, if you look at the history of government use of torture over time and worldwide, I think it’s pretty fair to say that torture gets misused WAAAAAAY WAAAAY WAAAAAAY more than it gets used in a way any reasonable person would consider ‘proper.’ Maybe 1 victim of government torture in 100,000, probably more like one in a million, can be said to have been ‘properly’ tortured to gain useful information from an enemy about immediate plans to kill and/or injure citizens. (Think Nazis. Think Stalin. Think the Romans. Think most of human history. Really, governments have thoroughly stunk up the whole torture debate with their behavior.) Now, suppose you were a doctor who had a patient, call him Rush, who really, really wanted you to prescribe him heroin pills. Rush says he has intense pain, and heroin is the ONLY thing that will fight that pain. This patient comes from a huge family of drug abuser, famous for their addictive behavior through the generations, with many current family members who are hopeless drug addicts. Is the question you should be considering, “Does heroin help reduce pain?” Of course not. If you ignore all the other elements of the Rush’s case except, “Does heroin help reduce pain?” you are one piss-poor excuse for a doctor. As a doctor, you have a duty to look at all aspects of the patient’s case before making a decision on a prescription. And when you do that, of course, the answer becomes really, really, really obvious. And if you think of torture only in terms of its effectiveness in some instances, you are one piss-poor excuse of a citizen. The answer to the question of, “Should governments be allowed to use torture?” is in fact really, really, really obvious. ---
**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 27, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/86 "2005-06-27T04:28:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, the question “Does torture work” is EXTREMELY loaded. We can assume that only governments should be allowed to use torture, if anyone is allowed to use it at all. That is, no one is seriously advocating that private individuals – pyschopaths and such – should be allowed to use torture. I don’t think anyone is advocating that even the largest corporation – say, Halliburton – should be allowed to advocate torture for its corporate purposes. > > So the real question is, “Should governments be allowed to use torture?” These are two completely different questions. Asking “can a gun kill somebody?” is a practical question. Asking “should I shoot somebody under these circumstances?” is a moral question. From a practical standpoint, there’s no difference between Jack Bauer torturing a terrorist for the location of a nuclear bomb he’s planted in a city and Vic Vega torturing a cop for the name of an undercover officer. Both are using pain to convince somebody to reveal a piece of factual information. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/87 "2005-06-27T04:50:51Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > So the real question is, “Should governments be allowed to use torture?” > . This question has been debatted hundreds of times. The question in this thread is _not_ this one. I could as well state : the real question is “Is torture used in Guantanamo?” and discuss Bush’s policies. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/88 "2005-06-27T05:09:34Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > Can we safely paraphrase what you’re saying as “We can’t say how they do it effectively, but torturers have experience at torturing, so they must know how to do it effectively.” No. I would change it to " what makes you believe that torturers will always use the most stupid methods, and that problems that you and I can immediatly notice despite having zero experience in torture or interrogations will never occur to them?" In the hypothetical presented to you, for instance, the torturer was trying to sort out people who had actual informations and people who hadn’t by asking a question he knew the answer of. For some reason, you (or someone else, I don’t remember) assumed in your answer that he would keep torturing people until they all give the correct answer. Which would run exactly contrary to his goal. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/89 "2005-06-27T11:43:19Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > This question has been debatted hundreds of times. The question in this thread is _not_ this one. I could as well state : the real question is “Is torture used in Guantanamo?” and discuss Bush’s policies. I’m just saying that considering the question in this thread in isolation is numb-nut stupid if you don’t take the larger context of who’ll be using it and what the history of those who’ve used in the past is. Yeah, they’re two different questions, but if I secretly favored torture, I’d very much want people to be debating THIS question, and not the larger one. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770/90 "2005-06-27T21:50:21Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > No. I would change it to " what makes you believe that torturers will always use the most stupid methods, and that problems that you and I can immediatly notice despite having zero experience in torture or interrogations will never occur to them?" Torturers, and the torturing community, is almost by definition made up of a population of people who believe that torture is effective. They may or may not be right. Once they believe that it works, confirming cases are going to tend to reinforce that belief regardless of the number of failures. There are groups of people who believe that dowsing works - people who use it professionally. And yet there is a dearth of dowsers whose abilities have been successfully demonstrated in scientific studies. People go to great lengths to defend their belief systems and rationalize their actions. You may be right that torture is effective at eliciting information under the circumstances you describe. That the torturers say it is may not be the best proof. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-torture-work/309770.md?page=4)