# Even if torture produced intel, how many people would you have to waterboard to get usable intel? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155 "2014-12-13T20:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/1 "2014-12-13T20:55:15Z")
Reading this article [here](http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/12/politics/torture-report/?hpt=us_t3), I thought about how awful it would be to be a guy getting waterboarded who doesn’t know anything. “I swear I don’t know who that guy is”! \ “Ok, ok, his name is, uh, Abdullah, and I think he’s Osama’s right hand man!”. So they grab Abdullah. Under waterboarding, Abdullah is like “I don’t know anything, I’m just a taxi driver!”. \ “Ok, ok, here’s a bunch of random people I know that might be terrorists!” It sounds to me like you’d essentially start by torturing someone who genuinely doesn’t know anything useful, squeeze out of them some made up information just to get the torture to stop, and then you’d start squeezing a completely innocent person based on _that_ false intel and pretty soon you’re just randomly grabbing people and getting nowhere. More disturbingly, the torture _doesn’t_ stop even if you try to talk as loud and often about anything you might possibly know at all. Like [this guy](http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/opinion/guantanamo-inmate-naji/index.html?hpt=hp_t5). He claims he did his honest best to try to cooperate. It did not stop the harsh and near-fatal treatment. ---
**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:** [December 13, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/2 "2014-12-13T21:00:45Z")
Since any genuine intelligence you get will be _buried under_ all the bad intelligence, plus you’ll be cutting yourself off from the methods that actually work, the answer is “none”. Torturing people for intelligence is going to reduce the amount of useful intelligence you have, not increase it. And torturing more people will just bury any actual information you have even more. It’s kind of like asking “how often do I need to crush my fingers with a hammer before I can learn to juggle”. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/3 "2014-12-13T21:10:50Z")
_It doesn’t matter_. Even if “good intel” was produced routinely from torture, it would still be wrong, and we still shouldn’t do it or condone it. When you focus the discussion on the practical results of torture, which even the head of the CIA admits is unknowable, you are begging the moral question, and anyone could legitimately assume that you think torture is morally okay _if it works_. So I am here to make the point that _torture is never okay_. I am ashamed and embarrassed of my government and of every fellow U.S. citizen who supports torture in any circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/4 "2014-12-13T21:14:48Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > **Even if torture produced intel, how many people would you have to waterboard to get usable intel?** …couldn’t we just use AMD chips instead…? ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/5 "2014-12-13T21:16:10Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Reading this article [here](http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/12/politics/torture-report/?hpt=us_t3), I thought about how awful it would be to be a guy getting waterboarded who doesn’t know anything. “I swear I don’t know who that guy is”! \ “Ok, ok, his name is, uh, Abdullah, and I think he’s Osama’s right hand man!”. > > So they grab Abdullah. Under waterboarding, Abdullah is like “I don’t know anything, I’m just a taxi driver!”. \ “Ok, ok, here’s a bunch of random people I know that might be terrorists!” > > It sounds to me like you’d essentially start by torturing someone who genuinely doesn’t know anything useful, squeeze out of them some made up information just to get the torture to stop, and then you’d start squeezing a completely innocent person based on _that_ false intel and pretty soon you’re just randomly grabbing people and getting nowhere. > > More disturbingly, the torture _doesn’t_ stop even if you try to talk as loud and often about anything you might possibly know at all. > > Like [this guy](http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/opinion/guantanamo-inmate-naji/index.html?hpt=hp_t5). He claims he did his honest best to try to cooperate. It did not stop the harsh and near-fatal treatment. This is so obvious to me, and yet, the idiots on Fox News keep trying to justify it. Believe it or not, Charles Krauthammer was on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show last night, and he actually trotted out the “ticking time bomb” scenario again, as if we haven’t heard it for the last ten years. But as Rachel Maddow (for one) pointed out, with some of the detainees, the first step of their torture was to be completely cut off from human contact for several weeks. THEN they started waterboarding them. So how urgent did they expect the information to be, if they waited six weeks to ask their first question? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/6 "2014-12-13T21:36:33Z")
AFAIK three people were waterboarded, and there was some useful intel gained, according to some. So in the most recent and famous case, the answer to the OP’s question is 3. One distinction that affects the case is that there aren’t really any such things as witches, but there are such things as terrorists. So false accusations don’t spread as rapidly and randomly as they might. If this is anything other than an RO thread, that is - if not, nm. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/7 "2014-12-13T22:34:19Z")
How would you know it is usable before it’s expiration date? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/8 "2014-12-14T05:13:02Z")
IIRC, somebody on this subject posted about a year ago, with some cites in re: usable intelligence. IIRC, the results were that if you torture them quick and proper, they will give you good info, at first. Further torture means that they will start making stuff up. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/9 "2014-12-14T05:15:54Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I am ashamed and embarrassed of my government and of every fellow U.S. citizen who supports torture in any circumstances. Many of us are ashamed of you for making such wretched statements, and for wanting to stop the torture of one enemy who could provide information that could save many, or, even one, US citizen’s life. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/10 "2014-12-14T05:26:18Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Many of us are ashamed of you for making such wretched statements, and for wanting to stop the torture of one enemy who could provide information that could save many, or, even one, US citizen’s life. I wouldn’t go as far as “many”. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/11 "2014-12-14T12:16:16Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > “Ok, ok, his name is, uh, Abdullah, and I think he’s Osama’s right hand man!”. > > So they grab Abdullah. Under waterboarding, Abdullah is like “I don’t know anything, I’m just a taxi driver!”. \ “Ok, ok, here’s a bunch of random people I know that might be terrorists!”. Your hypothetical implicitly presupposes that there’s no other way to gather intel to confirm it short of nabbing and torturing anyone named. Abdullah gets named. They look to see what if anything they have on Abdullah. They potentially dedicate other HUMINT/SIGINT assets to gather information on gaps in information that seem suspicious and might confirm or deny the relationship. This isn’t the ticking bomb scenario where grabbing Abdullah and cracking him in 15 minutes prevents 24 style national catastrophe. Maybe Abdullah is still driving his cab when you take out UBL based on the information developed by watching him. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/12 "2014-12-14T13:41:40Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > IIRC, somebody on this subject posted about a year ago, with some cites in re: usable intelligence. > IIRC, the results were that if you torture them quick and proper, they will give you good info, at first. Further torture means that they will start making stuff up. Sadly, they also give you the useful info if you bribe the bejesus out of them. And, actually, they _always_ give you useful info if you bribe them. ---
**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:** [December 14, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/13 "2014-12-14T18:13:03Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > IIRC, somebody on this subject posted about a year ago, with some cites in re: usable intelligence. > IIRC, the results were that if you torture them quick and proper, they will give you good info, at first. Further torture means that they will start making stuff up. No; torture produces bad information from the start, and it gets worse from there. It also destroys your other information sources, the ones that do work. > [@handsomeharry](#): > > Many of us are ashamed of you for making such wretched statements, and for wanting to stop the torture of one enemy who could provide information that could save many, or, even one, US citizen’s life. Why should I care if torturers get killed? And why are you presuming it’s enemies who are being tortured? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/14 "2014-12-14T18:20:55Z")
Torture as intelligence gathering doesn’t really work precisely because it’s been known for thousands of years that people break under torture. It’s why as far back as we’ve had armies, only the top generals knew the general plans of battle, where the army planned to move and etc. It’s why terrorist networks, guerrilla forces and what have you have for ages operated in a “distributed” model where just capturing one group doesn’t give you access to much/any information. The members of that group receive orders to take certain actions a relatively short window prior to the act, and they have no knowledge of who their boss’s boss is or what other groups are doing. Take the 9/11 attacks, based on what we know most of the hijackers if you had captured them they simply lacked information to give us any idea as to the entire plot. The 13 who were brought in very late, to solely act as “muscle” to overpower the flight crews and keep the passengers in line literally knew almost nothing. Six of the hijackers did have some planning responsibilities but even they individually wouldn’t have been able to give up the whole plot. Now, if any of them had been captured the whole attack would likely have been called off, or we’d know enough to stop it (i.e. that _something_ was being planned soon for airliners), but as far as usable intelligence outside the parameters of the plot? Even with all 19 captured you don’t really have much more intelligence on Al-Qaeda than you did the day before. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the other hand, is one of only a few people we’ve ever captured that did have a lot of operational intelligence on how Al-Qaeda operates. He was so high up that even if a lot of his _specific_ intelligence about ongoing activities was outdated almost immediately he still had a lot of valuable information about Al-Qaeda’s structure, how its planning/operations work and etc. KSM of course was tortured extensively, probably the most of anyone we’ve ever tortured. How much of that was necessary to get him to tell us what we know is questionable, KSM was a pretty corrupt guy (the Taliban didn’t even like him being in Afghanistan because he was basically a hedonist womanizer and they found him offensive), once captured KSM probably could have been easily manipulated into telling everything of worth without any waterboarding. I think it’s worth considering even groups with extremely evil intentions don’t really use torture for intelligence gathering. They may use it for various reasons; like because they just want to do it, or to demoralize other prisoners, but for intelligence gathering it’s not a very useful tool. In many countries where the Nazis had trouble rooting out all the Jews by far their most common technique for finding more was a simple bounty system. Some Nazi occupied countries there were very limited food rations, and the Nazis would make it known if you could finger a Jewish person posing as a gentile, or take them to a hidden Jewish family, you got extra rations, or were allowed to skip to the front of the bread line that day. Not tons of gold or promises of an immensely better life, just a promise of some food that day, and people turned on each other. Not right away, but a population pushed to the brink of starvation the Nazis correctly realized that while there would be some people who would rather starve than turn in their friends and neighbors there would also always be some who would choose to turn them in for some extra food. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/15 "2014-12-15T02:07:49Z")
Ho boy… [ol] [li]Waterboarding is not torture. Torture is the direct infliction of physical pain. Waterboarding is exactly what it was described as: An enhanced interrogation technique.[/li][li]9/11 was an absolutely unprecedented, unprovoked, heinous and intolerable act, akin to what the Germans & Imperial Japanese did in WWII (albeit on a shorter scale). Therefore in that situation the end justified the means (like Lincoln suspending _habeas corpus_ during the Civil War).[/li][li]It isn’t about quantity of people, but the quality. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that a great deal of reliable, useful intel was gathered thru interrogating the right people this way.[/li][li]As for the wrong people who got it: History is written by the victors, again the end justifies the means, and if you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.[/li][/ol] I do not feel the slightest bit of shame as an American to know these things were done in the name of my country. I wish they had been done beforehand if there was a chance 9/11 would have been prevented (as I’m sure many post 9/11-like attacks later were). The world is a dangerous place full of evil people who hate us and our way of life. If you can’t handle that then don’t think about it. But then don’t feel the slightest bit justified to criticize those who have to think (and _ **do** _ something) about it… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/16 "2014-12-15T02:29:56Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Ho boy… > > [ol] > [li]Waterboarding is not torture. Torture is the direct infliction of physical pain. Waterboarding is exactly what it was described as: An enhanced interrogation technique.[/li][li]9/11 was an absolutely unprecedented, unprovoked, heinous and intolerable act, akin to what the Germans & Imperial Japanese did in WWII (albeit on a shorter scale). Therefore in that situation the end justified the means (like Lincoln suspending _habeas corpus_ during the Civil War).[/li][li]It isn’t about quantity of people, but the quality. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that a great deal of reliable, useful intel was gathered thru interrogating the right people this way.[/li][li]As for the wrong people who got it: History is written by the victors, again the end justifies the means, and if you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.[/li][/ol] > > I do not feel the slightest bit of shame as an American to know these things were done in the name of my country. I wish they had been done beforehand if there was a chance 9/11 would have been prevented (as I’m sure many post 9/11-like attacks later were). The world is a dangerous place full of evil people who hate us and our way of life. If you can’t handle that then don’t think about it. But then don’t feel the slightest bit justified to criticize those who have to think (and _ **do** _ something) about it… Quite possibly the single most fact-free post I’ve ever seen on this message board. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/17 "2014-12-15T12:07:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > AFAIK three people were waterboarded, and there was some useful intel gained, according to some. I’m quite sure that if 5,000 people were waterboarded, you would say that there were only 5,000. Of course some people say it resulted in useful intel. What do you expect them to say? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/18 "2014-12-15T12:25:02Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Waterboarding is not torture. Torture is the direct infliction of physical pain. Waterboarding is exactly what it was described as: An enhanced interrogation technique. I’ll go with Christopher Hitchens, who actually underwent waterboarding – if waterboarding isn’t torture, than nothing is torture. It’s physiologically the same as holding someone’s head under water until they talk. It’s not even simulated drowning, it’s actual drowning that’s just (hopefully) interrupted before one dies. > [@](#): > > 9/11 was an absolutely unprecedented, unprovoked, heinous and intolerable act, akin to what the Germans & Imperial Japanese did in WWII (albeit on a shorter scale). Therefore in that situation the end justified the means (like Lincoln suspending _habeas corpus_ during the Civil War). What means? Torturing the at least 26 people the CIA admits were innocent of wrongdoing? Would it justify any means? Would it justify torturing a terrorist’s child in front of them until he talks? > [@](#): > > It isn’t about quantity of people, but the quality. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that a great deal of reliable, useful intel was gathered thru interrogating the right people this way. I have no idea why you’d feel this way, considering there is no documented evidence that this is true, and plenty that it is false. > [@](#): > > As for the wrong people who got it: History is written by the victors, again the end justifies the means, and if you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas. So again, I guess torturing children would be okay with you, because it might persuade their parents to give up info. Got it. > [@](#): > > I do not feel the slightest bit of shame as an American to know these things were done in the name of my country. I wish they had been done beforehand if there was a chance 9/11 would have been prevented (as I’m sure many post 9/11-like attacks later were). The world is a dangerous place full of evil people who hate us and our way of life. If you can’t handle that then don’t think about it. But then don’t feel the slightest bit justified to criticize those who have to think (and _ **do** _ something) about it… I feel just the opposite. This torture seriously damaged America. The only way to fix it in the long term, in addition to stopping it, is to fully reveal what we did. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/19 "2014-12-15T15:05:26Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > AFAIK three people were waterboarded, and there was some useful intel gained, according to some. So in the most recent and famous case, the answer to the OP’s question is 3. Also the answer to “How many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop”. Coincidence? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155/20 "2014-12-15T15:36:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’ll go with Christopher Hitchens, who actually underwent waterboarding – if waterboarding isn’t torture, than nothing is torture. It’s physiologically the same as holding someone’s head under water until they talk. It’s not even simulated drowning, it’s actual drowning that’s just (hopefully) interrupted before one dies. As long as the person remains tipped head-down there is no chance any significant amount of water will go into the lungs and potentially drown. Yes it is psychological ‘torture’, but so is what a girlfriend can do to you. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What means? Torturing the at least 26 people the CIA admits were innocent of wrongdoing? Would it justify any means? Would it justify torturing a terrorist’s child in front of them until he talks? Punishing one’s family is a decidedly non-Western practice. And by non-Western I not only mean that we don’t do it, but that non-Western societies like the Middle East (and Russia and North Korea etc.) routinely do it. And not just because they think it works, but because they feel the family _ **is** _ guilty by association. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I have no idea why you’d feel this way, considering there is no documented evidence that this is true, and plenty that it is false. Because releasing hard evidence to its effectiveness is a double-edged sword. On one hand it provides justification, but on the other it seriously tips our hand to the enemy in terms of what we know and how we knew it > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > So again, I guess torturing children would be okay with you, because it might persuade their parents to give up info. Got it. Again, see above. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I feel just the opposite. This torture seriously damaged America. The only way to fix it in the long term, in addition to stopping it, is to fully reveal what we did. This is the most unbelievably naive, ignorant, almost childish statement imaginable. You think its bad because it makes us look, ‘mean’?!? or something. The people and societies & cultures we were/are dealing with here are so below us in terms of basic human rights that worrying about our ‘image’ in their eyes is beyond laughable. Notice how much Israel gives a shit about its image to the arab world (other than maintaining one of strength and unwavering commitment to their existence). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/even-if-torture-produced-intel-how-many-people-would-you-have-to-waterboard-to-get-usable-intel/707155.md?page=2)