# "In the end, everybody breaks. It's biology" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2013, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700 "2013-01-29T09:57:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [January 30, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/21 "2013-01-30T17:20:52Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I would be very surprised if even half the prisoners were “innocent people”. I’d believe that of a prison in Afghanistan or Iraq (or the outsourced ones in Syria) but the people brought to Cuba were brought for a reason. Yeah; reasons like how we offered bounties for accusing people of terrorism, or a personal enemy accused them of terrorism to get rid of them, or some guy we were torturing blurted out his name to stop us. > [@md2000](#): > > My point still stands. Torture was just providing stress relief for the sadists. The people who knew did not break, the giveaway was the failure to explain the blanks in the data. Whether this was a refusal to give ANY detail, or simply a selective refusal to talk about important stuff, I don’t know. But even torture did not get this out of them. An accident with technology gave us bin Laden. That’s nonsense. Any normal human being will break immediately with something like waterboarding. “Breaking” is about losing control, not about giving accurate information. And it’s not “_even_ torture”; it’s “_especially_ torture”; torture is a rotten way to get accurate information, worse than useless under most circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/22 "2013-01-30T17:28:10Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I would be very surprised if even half the prisoners were “innocent people”. I suspect you’d be very surprised how little it took to end up in Gitmo. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/23 "2013-01-30T17:55:34Z")
Why is it still in operation? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/24 "2013-01-30T18:25:27Z")
Volunteers, who have undergone waterboarding under controlled conditions in the presence of personnel trained to keep them alive – the most favorable conditions possible – have “broken” in seconds. Christopher Hitchens famously lasted 15 seconds, and he was trying to prove something. [This post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14337504&postcount=8) allegedly quotes a CIA memorandum that says: > [@](#): > > CIA officers who have subjected themselves to the technique have lasted an average of 14 seconds before capitulating. …which makes Hitchen’s resistance “above average.” I can’t find a citation, but a US Marine voluntarily underwent waterboarding to prove it wasn’t that bad. IIRC the numbers, he broke in something like 18 seconds the first time, and sooner the second time. Then there’s been some testing by a Straight Doper: [I waterboard!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717), by **Scylla**. Gripping reading. **Scylla** seems to be of the opinion that breaking under waterboarding is “Pure hardwired instinct,” that it’s not a matter of conscious choice or training. So yeah, with the “right” techniques, everybody breaks. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/25 "2013-01-30T20:25:12Z")
Agree with **Isamu** , once you’ve broken out the thumbscrews and car batteries the subject is gonna start talking, just to make the pain stop. Whether or not what they’ve got to say is worth listening to is another matter entirely. In other words, is it an effective interrogation technique or just a sadistic waste of time? > [@](#): > > In a 1988 Senate hearing on torture, the CIA admitted the use of “physical abuse or other degrading treatment was rejected, (by their interrogators) not only because it is wrong, but because it has historically proven to be ineffective.” As the New York Times reported in 2007, the FBI’s said “harsh methods produce unreliable information from people who will say anything to stop the pain” no matter if the information is factual or fictional. [http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/does-torture-work-ask-the-cia.htm](http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/does-torture-work-ask-the-cia.htm) [Link](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/8833108/Torture-is-not-wrong-it-just-doesnt-work-says-former-interrogator.html) to an interesting interview with Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator. He states ““Did torture come up with information? Absolutely it did come with information. In Egypt they don’t talk to people they just beat the shit out of people, so any information that comes out of this, you can make the claim, but is it accurate?” Even back in World War II they were asking the same questions, on both sides. One of the greatest interrogators Germany produced, [Hanns Scharff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff), never laid a finger on Allied prisoners. Likewise the Allies were questioning the effectiveness; > [@](#): > > In September 1940, Guy Liddell, director of MI5’s counterintelligence B Division, said that he had been told by an officer present at the interrogation that Scotland had punched the jaw of a captured German agent at the London Cage. … Liddell said: “Apart from the moral aspects of the thing, I am convinced that these Gestapo methods do not pay in the long run.” > **[London Cage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Cage)** > > The London Cage was an MI19 prisoner-of-war facility during and after the Second World War to mainly interrogate captured Germans, including SS personnel and members of the Nazi Party. The unit, which was located within numbers 6, 7 and 8 Kensington Palace Gardens in London, was itself investigated following accusations that it often used torture to extract information. It was wound down in early 1948. > The United Kingdom systematically interrogated all of its prisoners of war. A "cage" for in... Of course, you can then ask the question of what exactly constitutes torture (are psychological techniques torture, for example?), but that’s one for GD I think. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/26 "2013-01-30T20:52:43Z")
> [@Backcountry\_Medic](#): > > The fact that he has to say it pretty much proves it isn’t true. Think about the torture meta-game. If people really reached “X” amount of torture and spilled their guts honestly and completely, he wouldn’t even bother telling him that “everyone breaks”; he would just keep torturing until that happened. Pretty much you have to convince someone that they’re _going_ to break and that it will be easier to just spill the beans now. > > Of course you can waterboard someone for 80 hours nonstop and get them to say something. They’ll probably say a thousand different things. But they could all be true, none of them could be true or only one of them could be true. Without some form of cooperation you won’t be any better off than when you started. In the book “My Battle of Algiers” the author talks about how the French won the battle of Algiers using torture. One of the things they did to one of the rebel leaders was to tell him that he had until a certain time to talk without being tortured and then they let him talk to another rebel leader they had tortured. After talking to the other rebel leader he decides to talk. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/27 "2013-01-30T23:12:38Z")
Are the agencies who torture in a military intelligence context simply unsophisticated? By that I mean that the interrogators are trying to get actual information, not a denunciation or their jollies. Thanks, Rob ---
**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:** [January 30, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700/28 "2013-01-30T23:30:20Z")
I was reading a book about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. There was one story of a guy who was one of Saddam’s inner circle and childhood friends who did something to offend Saddam (I think he protested some embezzlement by someone else in the inner circle). All he had to do was apologize and supposedly all was forgiven but he chose not to, he is likely dead now. So no, he didn’t break. Then again not all torture is the same. If waterboarding acts on certain unconscious instincts we can’t consciously control it may not have the same effect as more brutal torture like whipping or beatings. I have no idea how well some people stand up to well designed torture system (written by physicians, neuroscientists, etc to break the person’s will) vs what is considered torture in most of the world, being physically beaten by thugs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-end-everybody-breaks-its-biology/648700.md?page=1)