Is there any proof torture works?

[XT]

Was reading Scylla’s thread on water boarding and thought I would start a thread on a related subject…didn’t want to hijack his thread with my questions.

Basically what I’m looking for here is: Is there any proof that torture actually works in any kind of systematic way for extracting information? I know it has been used for…well, maybe forever as far as humans goes. But…does it even work? Do the torturers basically get whatever answers they want to hear by and large…or do they actually get useful information? And if so…is there any proof of that? What kind of success rate are we actually talking about here?

I don’t want to talk about if torture SHOULD be used in this thread (FWIW my answer is no, but then it’s based on my own view point that it doesn’t work anyway)…we have lots of threads on that subject. I think a first step in determining if torture should be used is to first find out if it even works at all. Because if it doesn’t, as I suspect, then it would go a long way toward slapping down any argument for it’s continued usage in modern times.

-XT

[Siam_Sam]

I’ve heard that the worst thing for an interrogator is if the subject keeps absolutely quiet and says nothing. If he lies, they have ways to check on the veracity of the information, but you can’t check on nothing.

[John_Mace]

We hear all the time that “torture doesn’t work”. But I think it depends on the type of information you want to get. If you can quickly verify whether it’s true or not, then the guy is likely to not lie. But if you can’t verify it, or if the guy doesn’t know the information you want, he’s going to say whatever he thinks is going to make you stop.

Imagine that someone breaks into your home and wants you to give him the combination to your safe. You know that he’s going to know immediately if you’re not giving the right info.

[gonzomax]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html Under pain and fear a prisoner will tell you anything. It is not reliable. If you torture enough ,you might get good info ,but how would you know.
Most interrogators say the best way is to win their confidence over time.

[Malodorous]

I dunno, but maybe we can do another experiment. I hear Scylla’s wife really wants to know what her Xmas present is this year, lets see if we can get him to volunteer to give her 24 hours with a crowbar and a branding iron and see if she can make him talk.

Really I think that guy has opened up a brave new world of empiricism here in Great Debates.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@Siam Sam

I’ve heard that the worst thing for an interrogator is if the subject keeps absolutely quiet and says nothing. If he lies, they have ways to check on the veracity of the information, but you can’t check on nothing.

Yeah, good luck on that. You are obligated to give your name, rank, date of birth, and Social Security/serial number, but I can guarantee you that they will find a way to break you. In that case, a lie is preferable to the truth, but nobody will have a problem with you giving up anything under coercion.

Everybody breaks. Everybody. People who don’t know what is coming are almost unfailingly honest. People who have been trained against interrogations are rarely honest under duress unless it’s a life or death question, in which case the truth is preferable to death.

But yes, it can work. In the short term it gathers tactical information, in the long term it can gather a veritable gold mine, but only as long as the information has value. Information on obsolete tactics and/or equipment and lapsed operations is useless.

[elucidator]

“Ve haff ways to make you cite!”

[Beware_of_Doug]

The people who believe in torture don’t need proof it works. It just feels so right.

[GIGObuster]

Of course torture does work. But not on the way some think.

When one does say “torture doesn’t work” it may be the saying of some well meaning persons, opposed for humane reasons. However, after more reflexion I concluded that that saying actually applies to the big picture.

The recent reports of what torture got us from captured terrorists leaves a lot to be desired, and I will insist that the big reason why torture is being used is to allow the powerful to find justifications to any policy or plan:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0208-13.htm

A few months after September 11th, the U.S. gained custody of its first high-ranking Al Qaeda figure, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. He had run bin Laden’s terrorist training camp in Khalden, Afghanistan, and was detained in Pakistan. Zacarias Moussaoui, who was already in U.S. custody, and Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber, had both spent time at the Khalden camp. At the F.B.I.’s field office in New York, Jack Cloonan, an officer who had worked for the agency since 1972, struggled to maintain control of the legal process in Afghanistan. C.I.A. and F.B.I. agents were vying to take possession of Libi. Cloonan, who worked with Dan Coleman on anti-terrorism cases for many years, said he felt that “neither the Moussaoui case nor the Reid case was a slam dunk.” He became intent on securing Libi’s testimony as a witness against them. He advised his F.B.I. colleagues in Afghanistan to question Libi respectfully, “and handle this like it was being done right here, in my office in New York.” He recalled, “I remember talking on a secure line to them. I told them, ‘Do yourself a favor, read the guy his rights. It may be old-fashioned, but this will come out if we don’t. It may take ten years, but it will hurt you, and the bureau’s reputation, if you don’t. Have it stand as a shining example of what we feel is right.’”

Cloonan’s F.B.I. colleagues advised Libi of his rights and took turns with C.I.A. agents in questioning him. After a few days, F.B.I. officials felt that they were developing a good rapport with him. The C.I.A. agents, however, felt that he was lying to them, and needed tougher interrogation.

To Cloonan’s dismay, the C.I.A. reportedly rendered Libi to Egypt. He was seen boarding a plane in Afghanistan, restrained by handcuffs and ankle cuffs, his mouth covered by duct tape. Cloonan, who retired from the F.B.I. in 2002, said, “At least we got information in ways that wouldn’t shock the conscience of the court. And no one will have to seek revenge for what I did.” He added, “We need to show the world that we can lead, and not just by military might.”

After Libi was taken to Egypt, the F.B.I. lost track of him. Yet he evidently played a crucial background role in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s momentous address to the United Nations Security Council in February, 2003, which argued the case for a preemptive war against Iraq. In his speech, Powell did not refer to Libi by name, but he announced to the world that “a senior terrorist operative” who “was responsible for one of Al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan” had told U.S. authorities that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two Al Qaeda operatives in the use of “chemical or biological weapons.”

Last summer, Newsweek reported that Libi, who was eventually transferred from Egypt to Guantánamo Bay, was the source of the incendiary charge cited by Powell, and that he had recanted. By then, the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq had passed and the 9/11 Commission had declared that there was no known evidence of a working relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Dan Coleman was disgusted when he heard about Libi’s false confession. “It was ridiculous for interrogators to think Libi would have known anything about Iraq,” he said. “I could have told them that. He ran a training camp. He wouldn’t have had anything to do with Iraq. Administration officials were always pushing us to come up with links, but there weren’t any. The reason they got bad information is that they beat it out of him. You never get good information from someone that way.”

In this business of finding justifications with torture, we are no better than Libya:

The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi admitted in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV that the Bulgarian medics jailed on charges of infecting children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, were tortured during captivity, the pan-Arab network said on its Web site Thursday.

The five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor were released last month and have maintained that** their confessions were extracted through torture.
**
“Yes, they (the medics) were tortured by electricity and they were threatened that their family members would be targeted. But a lot of what the Palestinian doctor has claimed are merely lies,” Seif al-Islam Gadhafi was quoted as saying in the Al-Jazeera interview, initially broadcast Wednesday.

Dr. Ashraf al-Hazouz, an Egyptian-born Palestinian, told Dutch television last month that Libyan authorities drugged him, shocked him by attaching electrodes to his feet and genitals, and set dogs on him. He also said they tied his arms and legs to a bar and spun him repeatedly, like a chicken on a rotisserie.

So anytime I see someone saying that “torture does work” I may say it does, for a rotten administration.

[What_Exit]

There is no proof either way. It is a long term debate. Many believe it does and many believe it is of no value as too many victims will end up answering anything to make it stop and will try to provide the answer they think will make it stop even if they really do not have an answer.

BTW: Here is Scylla very interesting and intense thread.

Jim

[GIGObuster]

I forgot to post the cite on the last quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/09/world/main3151574.shtml

@What Exit?

There is no proof either way. It is a long term debate. Many believe it does and many believe it is of no value as too many victims will end up answering anything to make it stop and will try to provide the answer they think will make it stop even if they really do not have an answer.

Jim

IMHO when it works I can assign any successes to a lottery effect, someone has to win sometimes. But is still a foolish thing to trust your future to.

I don’t have to believe torture works in obtaining what one wants. The problem will remain that we do not have leaders that are aware of their shortcomings, and ideology is clouding the interpretation of the evidence.

Under the current conditions saying that “Torture does not work” is more than just a sentence, it is a warning.

[Baldwin]

Well, Sen. John McCain was on Bill O’Reilly’s show once and the subject came up. Senator McCain, who was tortured by the North Vietnamese, said it’s not useful; but O’Reilly corrected him because he’s an expert on everything. So, who you gonna believe?

Even during the height of the Witch Craze in Europe, contemporary writers noted that you could take the most pious churchman, lay on some hot irons, and soon get a confession of witchcraft. I really think that historically, the point of torture is just to exert control over people. Or to have jolly good fun, like when the Apaches used to hang a guy upside-down over a fire until his head burst open.

On another message board where I occasionally participate, it often happens that somebody starts a thread about a notorious child-killer or molester. Soon, the good citizens on the board are bringing out the most detailed, vividly-described torture scenarios that they’d like to carry out; I can only assume they always have those ideas in the backs of their minds, and have spent their lives waiting for an excuse to use them. Perhaps they’re masturbating while they type. In any case, these folks are not rare specimens.

So, torture happens because we’re agressive, vicious, tool-using apes. It definitely works as recreation. Probably not that good for getting accurate, useful information.

[Ale]

To be honest, I don´t care if torture works or not; even if its a perfect solution its evil, dehumanizing and an ethical capitulation.
Just because something works or may work is not reason to use it regardless of its implications. For example, lets suppose that the authorities of some X country with a terrorism problem set a policy of killing the whole extended family of every terrorist caught, lets suppose that the measure works in reducing terrorism by 90%, the 10% that remains means that routinely whole families are slaughtered as a matter of legal procedure. You can say its been a striking success to reduce terrorism by 90%, if you cnviniently overlook the fact that in doing so you`ve become a monster.

The complete amorality of endorsing torture is appaling, get results (maybe, probably not) without any regards for anything else. Its completely sociophatic, just as well as I can get very rich (maybe, probably not) by going out, sneaking in peoples houses, killing them and taking away all their valuables.
At some point you have to stop and think if your methods are worth your humanity.

[Lust4Life]

Torture used properly can be very effective in eliciting information(Which is why it has never ceased to be used even after thousand of years)

As a previous poster said some of the info must be verifiable.
They must not ask leading questions.

If there are several prisoners who should have the same knowledge they can cross check against each one.

You’ll always hear the old chestnut that the prisoner may be giving a prepared cover story.
For that you must have a very good memory,something that becomes less good when you’re in intense pain and any interrogator worth his salt will be able to surprise you and confuse you into veering off the story track.

Actually a good interrogator can get wads of information without torture.
In our particular job we were told that the liklihood would be that if captured we would by that time be physically exhausted,be suffering from sleep deprivation anyway(which is one of the best tools the interrogator has)probably be wet and or cold,have muscle strains etc. etc.plus the psychological “Shock of capture” and so were trained accordingly.

You dont go into T.Q. warm,dry,well rested and fed.

Fear and disorientation,plus isolation are big breakers.
We were told that on capture we would most certainly be tortured.
If captured by the Russians we could expect to questioned for three days and then executed as by then our information would be a bit dated and they thought that we were too dangerous to keep alive.
(Melodramatic I know but thats what they told us.)

The I.R.A. regulary used torture on their own people and also used torture as an execution method for any British soldiers unfortunate enough to be captured.

If captured by Muslims NEVER EVER have atheist on your dog tags or you will suffer even more for it.
Slightly off topic but perhaps relevant

To address some of the points made by other posters the "Winning the prisoners confidence etc.etc."is more about getting him to change sides rather then interrogation and the information gleaned from that will not be up to the minute tactical stuff but long term logistical info.

They usually go through this stage after the questioning(if at all)proper as long term prisoners and isn’t often very effective,most people are loyal whatever their race or creed.
(Though interestingly I.R.A. prisoners were notorious for selling their own mothers if need be down the river with very little coercion or bribery usually for petty grudges held against their comrades for years and years,his mate got off with the girl he had always fancied or wouldn’t lend him a few quid when he wanted to buy a round of drinks,I kid you not)
The thing about staying silent is mostly true but you are obliged by the conventions to give the "Big Four"NRN,DoB.

If you start talking on subjects other then that even about totally innoccuos topics like the weather or your favourite colour for example it is very hard to stop.
Apart from building up a picture of your character and background the “I” can easily trick you into indicretions .

Also your innocent "yes"to an inquiry as to wether you’d like to sit down is recorded by concealed tape machines and broadcast over the airways of Bongoslavia as "yes"the British regulary use germ warfare on civilians .

R to I is only a part of your training but for the "I"it is ALL of his training,no matter how cunning you think that you are.

The poster who said that EVERYBODY cracks under torture is totally right,the idea is to delay and draw out that point.

Some years ago there was a plan to put all N.A.T.O. troops through in depth R.toI. training but the idea was dropped when they found that troops who weren’t of the highest level of motivation were suffering psychological problems due to the mental and physical stress of the experience.

I think that the allies Questioning in the M.E.may not be as effective as it might be due to cultural and psychological differences from our own in the west.

Speaking Arabic and having read a book about the Koran doesn’t cut it.
But thats only an opinion and I could well be wrong.

I’ll finish now if theres still anyone left awake.

[Martin_Hyde]

You have to define what you mean by “works” or this debate is, well, pointless.

During the middle ages torture almost always worked. When the goal of torture is simply to get a confession so the state can execute someone and claim it is a just execution, all that matters is the act of confessing. If a King wants to execute someone, but for political reasons doesn’t want to do it without some form of legal justification, he just has the guy tortured until the point that he confesses. After enough torture, confession and a quick execution can indeed seem like a treat.

In such a case, the King/state is not interested in the truth, justice or et al. He’s interested in removing someone who is a political opponent or et cetera and torture was a quick way to make the guy confess so the King could kill him and claim he was a confessed traitor (or whatever other crime they decided to charge him with.) So from that perspective, “torture worked” for the King, he got what he wanted out of it.

There’s an oft-repeated claim that torture is useless when it comes to gaining factual information. I don’t buy into that, either. The claim that “when tortured someone will say whatever it takes to make it stop, often lying.” Sure, that’s true. But if the information your wanting can easily be checked, then if the person being tortured wants the torture to stop, they know their only hope is to give the actual information.

The safe combination is a good example. Say you’re robbing a rich guy’s house, you know he has several million in jewelry, cash et cetera in a safe. You want the combination, he’s stubborn and won’t give it up. So you cut off a finger, he still won’t give it up, so you cut off another. Sure, he’d love to make the torture stop but what is to be gained by him lying? You’d realize the lie instantly when the safe didn’t open and continue the torture. In cases where you can quickly check the person’s information to see whether or not it is true, torture can certainly work because even if the person is desperate to end the torture, and thus willing to “say anything” only the facts you want will end the torture, lies won’t do them any good.

[Euthanasiast]

@Airman Doors

Everybody breaks. Everybody. People who don’t know what is coming are almost unfailingly honest. People who have been trained against interrogations are rarely honest under duress unless it’s a life or death question, in which case the truth is preferable to death.

But yes, it can work. In the short term it gathers tactical information, in the long term it can gather a veritable gold mine, but only as long as the information has value. Information on obsolete tactics and/or equipment and lapsed operations is useless.

Absolutely, and to add that everyone breaks a hell of a lot sooner than you might believe. But there are also very effective ways to torture people where no one gets hurt in the slightest, but your perception is that you are. I can think of ways to get information out of you (say the combination to your safe) without technically hurting anyone. You can place a man in a situation where he tortures himself and it is usually far more effective.

Let’s say I tie you up in one room, then tie your wife or child up in the next room. Then I gag the wife or child enough to where they can’t really talk but can make plenty of noise. Then I place a perfectly harmless, but large and scary-looking spider (or equally menacing phobic creature) on her bare leg. Then simply let her start screaming.

You’re in the next room. What do you think is going on in that room with your wife or kid? Let your imagination run wild. You become your own worst enemy (unless you’re like one of my friends who hates his wife and might ask if you’d scoot his chair within eyesight and make some popcorn–but I digress).

This is almost exactly how a typical torture scenario would play out where I was the one being interrogated:

“What’s the combination to the safe?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you shit!”

“Oh, you’ll tell us.”

“Yeah? do your worst, bitch. I guaran-god-damn-tee you won’t be walking out of here with the combination of my mother f%^$ing safe.”

“You’re going tell me.”

“That right? F$%^ you, that’s the combination.”

“Pull down his pants.”

(in perfect Jules voice when he heard Marcellus Wallace say he was sending The Wolf) “Oh, you wan’t the combination! Shit negro, that’s all you had to say!”

[Czarcasm]

@Martin Hyde

You have to define what you mean by “works” or this debate is, well, pointless.

During the middle ages torture almost always worked. When the goal of torture is simply to get a confession so the state can execute someone and claim it is a just execution, all that matters is the act of confessing. If a King wants to execute someone, but for political reasons doesn’t want to do it without some form of legal justification, he just has the guy tortured until the point that he confesses. After enough torture, confession and a quick execution can indeed seem like a treat.

In such a case, the King/state is not interested in the truth, justice or et al. He’s interested in removing someone who is a political opponent or et cetera and torture was a quick way to make the guy confess so the King could kill him and claim he was a confessed traitor (or whatever other crime they decided to charge him with.) So from that perspective, “torture worked” for the King, he got what he wanted out of it.

There’s an oft-repeated claim that torture is useless when it comes to gaining factual information. I don’t buy into that, either. The claim that “when tortured someone will say whatever it takes to make it stop, often lying.” Sure, that’s true. But if the information your wanting can easily be checked, then if the person being tortured wants the torture to stop, they know their only hope is to give the actual information.

The safe combination is a good example. Say you’re robbing a rich guy’s house, you know he has several million in jewelry, cash et cetera in a safe. You want the combination, he’s stubborn and won’t give it up. So you cut off a finger, he still won’t give it up, so you cut off another. Sure, he’d love to make the torture stop but what is to be gained by him lying? You’d realize the lie instantly when the safe didn’t open and continue the torture. In cases where you can quickly check the person’s information to see whether or not it is true, torture can certainly work because even if the person is desperate to end the torture, and thus willing to “say anything” only the facts you want will end the torture, lies won’t do them any good.

This works only if you are lucky enough to get the guy who knows the combination to the safe in the first place. Now, let’s try a more realistic scenario: you’ve broken into the house, and you think that it might contain a safe, contents(if any) unknown. You grab a random person in the house(Owner? Family of owner? Guest?-who knows?), and decide to torture the information out of him. When you finally get an answer out of him after repeated cries of “I don’t know!”, you find out that either the safe wasn’t where he said it was, or the combination was wrong. You go back to your prisoner, who says “I told you I didn’t know!”
So you keep him prisoner.
And you torture him again.
And again.
And again.
You’ve told others that you have a pipeline to the riches, and the surefire means to get the information you need, and it’s not working. Letting the prisoner go means that you were wrong, which is unacceptable. Letting the prisoner go also means that the prisoner will tell others what you did. Letting the prisoner go means that there is now someone out there that has changed from someone who didn’t give a fuck about you to someone who has a good and justifiable reason to want to get even, and who has been shown, by you, what is allowable in his pursuit.

[brazil84]

@Martin Hyde

You have to define what you mean by “works” or this debate is, well, pointless.

During the middle ages torture almost always worked. When the goal of torture is simply to get a confession so the state can execute someone and claim it is a just execution, all that matters is the act of confessing. If a King wants to execute someone, but for political reasons doesn’t want to do it without some form of legal justification, he just has the guy tortured until the point that he confesses. After enough torture, confession and a quick execution can indeed seem like a treat.

In such a case, the King/state is not interested in the truth, justice or et al. He’s interested in removing someone who is a political opponent or et cetera and torture was a quick way to make the guy confess so the King could kill him and claim he was a confessed traitor (or whatever other crime they decided to charge him with.) So from that perspective, “torture worked” for the King, he got what he wanted out of it.

There’s an oft-repeated claim that torture is useless when it comes to gaining factual information. I don’t buy into that, either. The claim that “when tortured someone will say whatever it takes to make it stop, often lying.” Sure, that’s true. But if the information your wanting can easily be checked, then if the person being tortured wants the torture to stop, they know their only hope is to give the actual information.

The safe combination is a good example. Say you’re robbing a rich guy’s house, you know he has several million in jewelry, cash et cetera in a safe. You want the combination, he’s stubborn and won’t give it up. So you cut off a finger, he still won’t give it up, so you cut off another. Sure, he’d love to make the torture stop but what is to be gained by him lying? You’d realize the lie instantly when the safe didn’t open and continue the torture. In cases where you can quickly check the person’s information to see whether or not it is true, torture can certainly work because even if the person is desperate to end the torture, and thus willing to “say anything” only the facts you want will end the torture, lies won’t do them any good.

I agree. Logically, some non-zero percentage of people would turn over the safe combination to avoid having a finger cut off. I know I would.

[Czarcasm]

@brazil84

I agree. Logically, some non-zero percentage of people would turn over the safe combination to avoid having a finger cut off. I know I would.

What would you tell your torturer if you didn’t know the combination to the safe?

[elucidator]

Thirty-two left, seventeen right, twenty four left! AAaaaaarrrgh! OK, fifteen left, forty four right, sixteen left! AAAaaaaarrrgh! OK, try twelve left…