I doubt Jesus himself could manage it so even if Obama is the “second coming” then nope.
You’d probably be surprised to find out that most Israelis feel more or less the same way.
Well, I did link to an example of it a few posts back.
(bear in mind while reading this post that, as explained in the OP, I am AGAINST TORTURE.)
I guess the question for me is this: you are part of a covert team of infiltrators living undercover to foment rebellion against an evil and repressive regime. You and 5 or so people on your team all know each other’s cover identities. One of you vanishes. If you find out that he has been captured and will certainly be instantly and viciously and effectively tortured, is your response “well, torture rarely works, so I’m almost certainly safe” or is it “omfg I’m getting out of here asap”? Alternatively, one of them vanishes, and has been captured by an organization that is known to never use torture but to attempt to psych-out and mindgame people into confession. In which case are you more urgently fucked?
And yes, I have read several seemingly authoritative claims from people who have done actual interrogations who claim that torture is ineffectual, but I am as yet unconvinced. For one thing, there’s some selection bias going on there. The master Luftwaffe interrogator who didn’t use torture? He got a book written about him. What about the master Gestapo interrogator who DID use torture? We don’t hear much about him and how successful he was. Similarly, whatever scumbag was working for the CIA ordering the waterboarding recently and collating the results wants to remain as anonymous as he can, whereas the guy who interrogated prisoners humanely does not.
Sorry, that you did. And yes, that part of that post is asinine, I agree. Torture has extracted information, though I’d again add the caveat that other methods would have likely been more successful, and that the information extracted by torture is by its nature of dubious veracity.
You seem to be sticking to the idea that the purpose of torture is solely to extract information. It’s not. The “master Gestapo interrogator” probably was extremely successful. But in getting information, and trustable information, he was probably a hell of a lot less successful than the Leftwaffe interrogator.
I’d worry more about the guy in the hands of the skilled interrogator. People just assume you turn on the electricity and everyone spills the beans. Thank the movies for that. The reality is far different.
Interesting you seem dubious of authoritative sources but here’s another for your Gestapo bit:
With torture (leaving aside the moral aspects completely) the choice in reality isn’t between “use torture only” and “use other techiques only”. If that was the choice, certainly use of other investigative techniques would almost certainly be better, for the simple reason that (without the use of other forensic techniques) it would be very difficult for the torturer to know if the subject is lying and merely telling him what he thinks the torturer wants to hear.
The real contest is between an interrogator who may use torture (as well as any other technique) and one who may use any technique - except torture.
Those arguing for the anti-torture position on practical grounds are faced with the fact that it is difficult to see how removing one possible technique (or credible threat) makes the interrogation job more efficient.
Certainly I wish it were true that torture is useless and worthless as a technique, as if everyone became convinced of this it would be less likely to be used. But sadly it seems difficult to support logically.
re: torture. Just thought I’d post this anecdotal story I heard a few weeks ago while in Chile. Seems relevant in this thread.
I was speaking with Pedro Matta who was a prisoner (#209) at Villa Grimaldi during the 1970’s. He stated regarding being tortured there, “if you have the information they want, you will tell them. If you don’t have the information they want, you will make it up.”
He further said giving up useful information was the worst thing you could do because they would know you’re a good source and ramp up the tortore looking for more. He was a leftist college grad/student at the time and they wanted to know who he associated with.
Because torture poisons the well. One of the complaints of the professional interrogators about our torturing people was that it destroyed their usefulness as sources of information. It also drives away alternate sources of information who won’t want anything to do with torturers. It also creates more enemies, and makes the ones we have more dangerous. And, it buries useful data under a flood of bad data.
Ttoruee has negative value as an interrogation tool. It’s what you use when you want lies, not truth. Or are just sadistic.
It may well be the case that the use of torture would be net counterproductive for the side that uses it, as they lose the moral high ground - hard to be the “good guys” when you employ torturers. I certainly am of that opinion. That leads to the larger question of whether being moral is in and of itself a good idea from a practical POV. I tend to think all things being equal that it is, and well worth any inconveniences that being moral entails - such as the inability to do certain things.
However, the narrow issue is whether inability to use torture in a particular case is an “inconvenience” to the interrogators in getting a person in their clutches to tell them some useful info they wanted to know. The better view, I think, is that it is, however much I would prefer that not to be the case. Certainly not everyone who used torture in the past was deluded as to its value, wanted lies, or was simply doing it for fun.
See, this is what the OP was getting at. There are several positions on this board (torture being one of them) where you have people going to such an opposite extreme that even if you are opposed to the position you feel compelled to argue against the faithful. This is one of them. By and large I’m opposed to torture…I think it’s not the most effective or optimal interrogation technique and should be a last resort, not a first resort. Even then I doubt it would be effective.
But to say, categorically, that it always has a negative value is simply nuts. It’s so far over the top as to be coming down the far side of loony. But if you aren’t fervent enough, or in lock step enough, then the board faithful turn on you like a pack of wild dingos. I tried to argue a moderate position in the thread about torture and the nuclear bomb and basically after a few pages it wasn’t worth while…people were either in the loony over the top camp and were basically in fingers in ears full rant mode or they had fled the thread (or they were in the torture is cool camp I suppose…though those are few and far between on this board, thankfully enough).
I vote for economics threads though…there is a vast amount of ignorance on this subject on this board, and despite myriad threads that explain at least the rudiments of how a free market capitalist system works we STILL have a number of posters who wade in with the same old, tired quasi-communist/socialist arguments that don’t even represent their own nominal side well, let alone show even the vaguest understanding of how a free market system actually works in the real world.
I guess, as a runner up, maybe the AGW/Climate Change threads…I think that a lot of posters who post in those threads don’t really understand the science (I know I don’t), but insist on posting anyway…and basically they simply are saying ‘well, all the scientists believe it’. Anyone who even attempts to dispute the standard line is thrown down, but generally in such a stupid and meaningless way as to make their posts pointless. We have a few (like jshore) posters who actually seem to know what they are talking about on the subject, but even though I’m probably more in the AGW/Climate Change camp than not I’d still wish to see the debates argued and supported better than they are.
-XT
Back in the early 18th century, pirates raiding towns in the Carribean would throw a rope over a roof beam, tie one end to the homeowner’s testicles and pull the other end until he told them where he’d hid his valuables. It was surprisingly effective.
Hey, how do you know? Maybe they would have gotten even more valuables if they used non-violent interrogation techniques. Like really gotten to know and befriend the home-owners, make them see that giving pirates valuables was the better choice.
I suggest a controlled experiment! 
Torture is overall a negative sum game. That does not mean it has not produced a “positive” result here and there. Just that, all things considered, it has a negative value as regards intelligence gathering when you add it all up.
It is amazing that cite after cite after cite from sources who would know, people who have been there and done that, are ignored with the belief that while torture is usually bad we can posit some situation where it might be good.
Heck, the ticking time bomb situation usually trotted out for this purpose was debunked as a place where torture would be useful in one of the earlier threads.
Bottom line is torture as a means of gathering intelligence is awful. I even noted above the Japanese in WWII admitted as much and they were not exactly nice guys.
As a function of government policy torture is a net negative. Crafting some extreme hypothetical where it may be indicated on a one-off basis is just muddying the waters and does change the overall calculation.
The ticking time bomb thread is exactly the one I’m talking about. It was such a stupid and over the top scenario that ONLY torture would have had even a minuscule chance of getting the info in time. Absolutely nothing else would have worked…and yet people were going nuts trying to twist and turn the discussion so that either they demonized anyone simply stating this truth or to try and find off the wall ways to make their world view work so that no torture was required.
Far from being debunked in that thread (if we are talking about the same thread), what it showed me is that a ration discussion on this topic is simply impossible to have on this board. Of course, the OP scenario in the thread was so stupid that it wasn’t really worth debating anyway.
-XT
From post #92 in the Ticking Time Bomb thread I cited this:
Personally I’ll go with the opinion and experience of the guy who has conducted 12,000 interrogations over the gut-feel of those on this Board.
And, given the conditions of the OP I’ll say that this guy never took these exact circumstances into account and that it has no real bearing on the scenario described. There simply was and is no other way to even have a small chance of success.
-XT
Well, the “we’ll torture you until you tell us the combination to the safe” is an example where torture will work–as long as the torture victim actually knows the combination to the safe.
A situation where the truth of the torture victim’s statements can be quickly checked, and if the information is false the torture will resume, is a situation where torture will work.
But if you’re got only one shot at checking the torture victim’s statement? Why in the world would the torture victim tell the truth? The goal of the torture victim is to get the torture to stop. If telling a lie will get the torture to stop, then the torture victim will tell a lie. And if the torturer can’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie, what incentive does the torture victim have to tell the truth?
The ticking time bomb is exactly a situation where torture can’t work, because you torture the guy, and he says the bomb is on 7th avenue. Now what? Did he tell the truth, or did he lie? What incentive does he have to tell the truth? You’ll stop the torture if he tells the truth? Yes, but if he lies, the bomb will go off before you have the chance to know that he lied. Therefore since telling the truth and telling a lie are equally effective at stopping the torture, the victim will almost certainly lie.
And then what?
Well, in the scenario you only have an hour, so if he’s lying, then everyone in New York dies. If he doesn’t know then everyone in New York dies. So, it’s sort of a binary situation…either you get the information out of the guy (if he has it) or everyone in New York dies. With only a ridiculously small time frame to work with no other method would possibly have any chance at all.
You can twist and turn (as the posters in that thread did for gods know how many pages) or simply accept that in this very narrow, stupid case there probably isn’t another option…it’s that or simply sit back and let everyone in New York die without doing anything.
-XT
But, XT, why would he not lie in that scenario if his aim is to cause the deaths. Lying and telling the truth have the equal result as regards the torture, it ends. But the benefit of lying to him outweighs the benefit of telling the truth - the bomb still goes off.
For the ticking bomb scenario to work, you have to have a situation where the person doesn’t have an incentive to lie. But I can’t think of one where they wouldn’t just tell you the location of the bomb anyway unless they wanted it to go off.
I do not agree with this assumption.
The interrogators I just cited above related that these guys want to be martyrs. That even when 3rd degree burns, broken bones and so on were inflicted on people with a lot less important info than where a nuke is they still provided nothing of use.
Common sense tells me if you started pulling my finger nails out wanting to know where the bomb is I’d be pretty pissed and eagerly look forward to nuking you. I would not tell you the truth.
As such I would wager that if any course of action were likely to work it would be to try to appeal to the bomber’s humanity, impress upon him the grave thing he is about to do. Think of the children. Or show his capacity for mercy. Or explain that if New York goes boom the US will likely make his whole country go boom in retaliation but if we stop it Americans will be so freaked about a “next time” they will demand the US get out of the Middle East completely.
Would any of that work? Probably not but as a chance I think it is a better one than hooking a car battery to the guy’s balls. A trained interrogator however might be able to discern what makes the guy tick…ego, pride, religious devotion or whatever…and pry on that to get the guy to relent.
Yeah, in the end New York would probably go boom no matter what as the scenario was laid out but I do not see how torture is the only solution.
Heck, if nothing else I would refrain from torture just to keep my humanity intact for the last few minutes before I was dead.