Because the torturing of people on witchcraft charges to gain confessions does not encompass the whole of torture, simply one narror aspect. I make no assumptions that this isn’t still done in modern times at all…all I’m saying is that you can’t focus on such a narrow aspect of anything, disprove it, then say ‘well, this disproves it all!’. Thats why its a strawman on your part.
And yet, again, they do not claim that all forms of torture are completely ineffective, merely that some are pretty horrible and immoral.
I’m not narrowing the debate by saying you have to look at all aspects instead of one narrow one. Thats you, reguardless of how you are trying to spin this. If you want to prove that torture doesn’t work then you need to addres all forms of torture, not just physically abusive torture used to force confessions. Even the professional interrigator types generally acknowledge that this doesn’t work so…you are oriented on a position that is ALREADY generally acknowledged not to work.
You are wrong btw…its not I who has to DIS-prove that torture in any form doesn’t work (or to prove it does)…its those who are making the claim that torture doesn’t work who need to provide some proof that it doesnt’…and proof that NO form of torture works. So far I’ve seen nothing but a few cites that seem mostly based on anacedote of various military men remembering past experiences…and they haven’t exactly been indepth analysis of all the various aspects of torture…more like soundbites to me, carefully selected to make the author of the articles point.
However, if you claim that anacedotes are acceptable as proof then I’m sure I can dig up an anacedote or two out there on the web somewhere of someone claiming that in his/her experience tortured obtained the information they were going after. IS anacedote acceptable?
Is anyone now thinking about anthropology students descending on native villages armed with surveys and cattle prods?
“What are the traditional roles in your society for unmarried women?”
“I’ll never tell you!” zzzzzz “Aaaaa! Alright I’ll talk! Unmarried women often find jobs as caretakers for young children!”
“LIAR! You expect me to believe women act as caretakers in a patriarchal agragarian society like this!” zzzzzz
“AAAAAAA! Please…I swear…we’ve only just made the transition to agriculture from hunting and gathering…we haven’t had time to abandon our traditional ways!”
“Listen you little worm, don’t try to tell me about transitional societies. I did an entire semester on transitional societies. Now start telling me the truth because I’ve got a thesis due and I’m not a patient man.”
But theres nothing cultural about “What is your commander’s name?” or “How many guns do you have” or “What object do you plan on attacking on Friday Night”. These are all factual questions. You can either answer correctly or answer incorrectly. Theres no room for culture to creep into it.
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.
Your cultural bias is already showing, even though (I assume) this is just a simple example you constructed off the cuff.
Terrorist cells do not necessarily have “commanders”. I read somewhere that the idea that the Iraq insurgency has a “central command headquarters” and “hierarchical command structure” was precisely one of the great wrong ideas that the Americans had about them. “What is your commander’s name?” is a meaningless question to ask in a bazaar-style organization and the answer will be meaningless if not wrong.
From reading the papers I don’t think “How many guns do you have” would be a meaningful question to ask of a terrorist. The country is littered with guns. The terrorist might know of many odd piles of different kinds of guns in varying conditions.
“What object do you plan on attacking on Friday Night” sounds like an especially dangerous leading question to ask in an interrogation situation.
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.”
I hope you’ll forgive me if I think this line of arguement is less than convincing.
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”. Another thing to consider is that perhaps we just haven’t tortured enough people. Torturers need to be trained like any other profession. It’s probable that someone who has tortured every day for 30 years is going to extract far better results than a rank amatuer. Given the lack of experienced torturers in the US army, this might also skew experience.
In science, I’m only concerned with verifiable facts and hard data. A scientist can only say 2 things, something which is true or something which is false. There’s no “what he wants to hear” stuff in there.
In an ideal world, perhaps we could expect torturers to ask non-leading questions and not have any preconcieved notions. But in an ideal world, why would we need to torture anyone?
Yes, obviously I’m not an iraqi expert. However, your missing the point that we know the answer to a lot of these questions and we are using them as probes. Obviously, if I were an actual, competant, torturer, I would have a fairly good idea about the structure of their terrorist cells. I might choose to ask this question anyway to see if they respond correctly. If they say “John is the commander” then they are probably lying for all the other questions and they get a beating. If they say “There is no commander, we are run in a bazaar like structure”, then he might be telling the truth for the other questions as well. The point is, despite how erronenous the actual questions are, as long as they have a clearly defined right and wrong answer, they are still useful.
True… but it could also be a mistake. What if it’s someone the terrorists captured to try to force into becoming a suicide bomber? What if it’s someone they’re holding hostage to influence a tribal elder’s resolve?
Now let’s say you capture them after they’ve been shooting at your troops. Now you can really be sure they’re guilty. Even now is torture justified? On moral grounds, I would say no. On practical grounds, that’s what this thread is devoted to talking about. I’m leaning towards no on those grounds too.
And, surprise! They could be totally innocent people who were sold to American troops for bounties by local rivals and have never even spoken with an Al Qaeda member, let alone a leader…