# Ticking Bomb Scenario **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 2, 2008, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662 "2008-04-02T12:43:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/101 "2008-04-09T14:41:34Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] As I recall, one effect of our torturing in Iraq was that most of our local intelligence dried up. No one wanted to talk to us anymore. How is that good for police work ? [/QUOTE] Oh you recall that do you ? Or did you read it somewhere? Or see it on T. V? I dont “recall” you as having actually been there…or anywhere near there. Funnily enough the U.S. interrogators who were actually there,and I’m not one of them,I’m a Brit and an ex soldier not an interrogator,dont recall your version of events at all. I would not be stunned with amazement if there have been media reports from someone with an axe to grind who may or have may not been there and who may or have may not totally fucked up,but I trust what the majority of the U.S. interrogators have to say about it ,but thats just me. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/102 "2008-04-09T15:00:19Z")
[QUOTE=gaffa] He’s a professor publishing a scholarly work via a University press. Isn’t that pretty much a gold standard for citations? I’m not going to buy and summarize a 900 page book to determine what percentage of his data is based on various torture survivor’s testimony (“anecdotes”) and what percentage is actual records of torture. The latter would appear to be the most difficult type of information to gather, as even the regimes that torture have enough residual ethics left to feel ashamed. [/QUOTE] No its not,anymore then a professor is the gold standard in intelligence operations or being involved in combat. It is the gold standard of someone who wishes to be published,promote his own morality as against reality and wants people to like him. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/103 "2008-04-09T15:03:41Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] John McCain knows something of torture, and he knows that the United States loses all credibility if it practices torture while preaching human rights and the rule of law (after WW2, we prosecuted for war crimes several Japanese troops who’d practiced waterboarding). If we torture others, we subject our own captured troops to similar treatment and lose virtually any standing to then complain or prosecute. No one has been more outspoken in Congress against torture than McCain; Clinton and Obama share his views, although fortunately not because of any personal experience with the practice. I take some comfort from the strong likelihood that, no matter who’s elected President in November, our country will stop torturing. We should never have started. [/QUOTE] Check out [this article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503318.html) for an analysis of McCain’s conflicted voting record on torture. Before that vote, I believed that he would never vote to authorize torture, but now I’m not so sure. As for whether torture produces useful information, here is one of many anecdotes from Vietnam, where American pilots were tortured for information about their unit composition, or engaged in “friendly” chats intended to bring them close to their captors: > [@](#): > > Next the torturers wrapped cord around his body so it looked like he had no arms. They tied parachute cord around his thumbs, which were at the back of his head, and hoisted his body off the ground by throwing the cord over the rafters. Swindle said the technique pulled his shoulders out of socket. > > “And it’s about that point where you think you’re insane, 'cause this is hurting quite badly, and there’s not a soul in the world that can help me,” he said. > > That’s when he learned to lie, figuring he could give them just enough truth to make his lies believable. When the interrogators wanted Swindle to name the men in his squadron, he told them he couldn’t think in such pain. They’d have to loosen the ropes to get anything out of him. When they started to loosen his bindings, he gave them the names of his high-school football coach and assistant coach, saying that was is squadron commander and executive officer. > > When they loosened the ropes some more, he gave them the names of his entire high-school football team as his squadron’s pilots. Swindle chuckled as he recalled a welcome-home gala several years later in his small south-Georgia hometown. “All those guys were in the audience,” he said. “And I said, ‘You better not ever go to North Vietnam, because they’re looking for you.’” > […] > He said one interrogator liked to practice his English by bragging about his country’s 4,000-year history. Once during an October spent there, this individual was bragging about an upcoming Vietnamese holiday and taunted Swindle by telling him the United States is such a young country it couldn’t have any meaningful holidays. > > Swindle convinced him a major American holiday was right around the corner, National Doughnut Day, on Nov. 10. He described doughnuts as similar to something the men got served on rare occasions in the prison camp. Periodically the Vietnamese would take old, dirty bread and fry it and sprinkle it with a little sugar. The men took to calling the concoctions “sticky buns.” > > As soon as that interrogation session was over, Swindle “got on the wall” and tapped out what he had done so the others would respond in kind. Sure enough, on Nov. 10 that year, the North Vietnamese brought around these sticky buns in celebration of National Doughnut Day. Swindle had gotten their North Vietnamese jailers to unwittingly celebrate the Marine Corps birthday. It’s possible, I guess, that we’ve learned ways to break people down that are more elegant than the crude application of lots of pain, but without a contrary cite from someone in the business, I’m going to have to call “bullshit” and lean on the wealth of evidence we have from Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/104 "2008-04-09T16:12:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Maybe in another thread, but not this one-it’s off-topic. Why don’t you go back, re-read the OP, and try to actually answer the question that is asked? You know-the one about “torture”, a “ticking time bomb”, and a concrete example of the former successfully being used to solve the problem of the latter. Got one? If not, just say “no”, instead of trying to re-word it until you can answer “yes”. So is this one of those threads where only posts on one side of an issue are allowed? Well, you’re the moderator, so I guess I can foresee how that will end. But before the thread is closed, let me point out that there have been three examples given in this thread where torture was used to obtain real information. It was those who claim that torture never works who then re-defined what it was they were asking for. And when asked for cites of their position stated that such cites were impossible to obtain. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/105 "2008-04-09T16:25:52Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] So is this one of those threads where only posts on one side of an issue are allowed? Well, you’re the moderator, so I guess I can foresee how that will end. But before the thread is closed, let me point out that there have been three examples given in this thread where torture was used to obtain real information. It was those who claim that torture never works who then re-defined what it was they were asking for. And when asked for cites of their position stated that such cites were impossible to obtain. [/QUOTE] “Oooh! I’m being persecuted by the Moderators!” The way I see it, there is one topic here-Has torture been used successfully in a “ticking time bomb” scenario. There are two sides to this issue-yes, or no. The way the question is worded, it seems to me that the onus is on those who take the “yes” side of this debate to come up with a concrete example _that actually fits the question that is being asked._ The alternative-asking the “no” side to prove that it has never been effective-is too silly to even discuss. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/106 "2008-04-09T16:59:18Z")
> [@](#): > > The way I see it, there is one topic here-Has torture been used successfully in a “ticking time bomb” scenario. There are two sides to this issue-yes, or no. The way the question is worded, it seems to me that the onus is on those who take the “yes” side of this debate to come up with a concrete example that actually fits the question that is being asked. The alternative-asking the “no” side to prove that it has never been effective-is too silly to even discuss. But that is the position that several people have taken in this thread - that the “ticking bomb” scenario is not possible because torture has never worked in any circumstance, including that one. So if that’s their line of reasoning in responding to the topic of the thread, then it’s also a legitimate topic for the thread to respond to that line of reasoning. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/107 "2008-04-09T17:36:28Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] But that is the position that several people have taken in this thread - that the “ticking bomb” scenario is not possible because torture has never worked in any circumstance, including that one. So if that’s their line of reasoning in responding to the topic of the thread, then it’s also a legitimate topic for the thread to respond to that line of reasoning. [/QUOTE] Bullshit. Using this so-called logic, all the “yes” side has to do is come up one example, while the “no” side has to negate every single example of torture being used, including ones they have have no knowledge of. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/108 "2008-04-09T17:36:55Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] Oh you recall that do you ? Or did you read it somewhere? Or see it on T. V? [/quote] As I recall, it was in _Fiasco_. But it’s simply common sense, the reaction I’d expect from any group of people anywhere. What’s your reason for believing that Iraqis are so different from anyone else ? [QUOTE=Lust4Life] I dont “recall” you as having actually been there…or anywhere near there. Funnily enough the U.S. interrogators who were actually there,and I’m not one of them,I’m a Brit and an ex soldier not an interrogator,dont recall your version of events at all. [/quote] Why should I care about the opinion of torturers, of monsters ? Of proven liars and incompetents ? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/109 "2008-04-09T23:27:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Bullshit. > Using this so-called logic, all the “yes” side has to do is come up one example, while the “no” side has to negate every single example of torture being used, including ones they have have no knowledge of. Exactly. I’ll agree that if their premise that torture never gains any useful information is correct then it would follow that torture never gains any useful information in a ticking bomb scenario. So they are making a valid argument, if you accept the premise. In order to rebut their argument it’s necessasry to rebut the premise. To say that they can present the argument but that rebutting it is off-topic restricts this debate to only one side. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/110 "2008-04-09T23:42:42Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Exactly. I’ll agree that if their premise that torture never gains any useful information is correct then it would follow that torture never gains any useful information in a ticking bomb scenario. So they are making a valid argument, if you accept the premise. In order to rebut their argument it’s necessasry to rebut the premise. To say that they can present the argument but that rebutting it is off-topic restricts this debate to only one side. [/QUOTE] No, to rebut the argument _as stated in the OP_ all one has to do is present a single case where torture has aided in getting essential information to prevent a “ticking time bomb” situation. One single real world case. That would apply to the OP. That. Is. All. You. Have. To. Do. Simplest thing in the world to show, if it has ever happened. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/111 "2008-04-10T01:05:29Z")
Then wouldn’t it be the people who posted that torture never works who went off topic? ---
**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:** [April 10, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/112 "2008-04-10T01:07:48Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Then wouldn’t it be the people who posted that torture never works who went off topic? [/QUOTE] And not you,who used their posts as a liferaft to avoid the question posed in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/113 "2008-04-10T01:32:49Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] Not those lips. Not “him.” [/QUOTE] I don’t understand. Can you explain this further? ---
**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:** [April 10, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/114 "2008-04-10T02:16:12Z")
[QUOTE=Gozu] I don’t understand. Can you explain this further? [/QUOTE] Ladies have an extra pair; I believe that was the implication. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/115 "2008-04-10T02:41:18Z")
People, people, people: You’re all missing something important! If you use the grater disk, and jimmy the interlock so you don’t have to put the top on, lips in the food processor is no problem. Now all we have to do is find that ticking time bomb. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/116 "2008-04-10T03:06:36Z")
As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who has posted a real life, genuine example of a “ticking bomb” in the London bus bombing case - and in that one, the information was obtained and the bomb was stopped. No torture was needed and would have been counter-productive because, generally speaking, people don’t turn their sons and friends over to torturers. People are funny like that. > [@Lust4Life](#): > > No its not,anymore then a professor is the gold standard in intelligence operations or being involved in combat. It is the gold standard of someone who wishes to be published,promote his own morality as against reality and wants people to like him. 900 pages of academically published research into a subject are apparently considered, by you, as less worthwhile and valid than your own opinion? Sorry, but I thought the discussion in “Great Debates” was a bit greater than that. As the topic has devolved into personal attacks, I’ve said my last in this particular topic. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/117 "2008-04-10T03:45:05Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Ladies have an extra pair; I believe that was the implication. [/QUOTE] Ohhh, he was talking about putting a _vagina_ in the food processor! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/118 "2008-04-10T04:27:56Z")
> [@](#): > > And not you, who used their posts as a liferaft to avoid the question posed in the OP? I thought that question had been answered. > [@](#): > > In the 2002 Jakob von Metzler case in Frankfurt, Germany there was a suspected ticking bomb scenario (kidnapper arrested, admitted kidnapping but refused to state whereabouts of 11 year old kidnap victim which might have been in danger of suffocation etc.). After the kidnapper was verbally threatened with physical harm he led police to the body (it turned out that he had killed the boy early on so there was not in fact ticking bomb scenario). > [@](#): > > A room mate of mine was a Viet vet. He told me that he and his buddies tortured several prisoners for information, the chief goal of which was to (a) accomplish the mission, (b) save the lives of his buddies or (c) both. > [@](#): > > In 1942 the Czech resistance assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotector of Czechoslovakia, Hitler wanted results, he didn’t care how, he said these guys don’t listen to anything, and the Gestapo got the three bad guys but to do that they tortured and killed 7,545 individuals, annihilating two villages. They also got 100 resistance members on the side they weren’t looking for but that’s pretty typical results, Battle of Algiers, Vietnam, we can go through them. Three examples in which torture was used to obtain information in the middle of an ongoing situation. Now you can argue about the details. That it was the threat of torture and not actual torture itself. That it was gathering up people after an attack rather than before the attack. And of course that there was no literal ticking time bomb - but quite frankly there hardly ever is a ticking time bomb. People who want to blow something up in real life usually just blow it up - they don’t use elaborate clock mechanisms to increase the dramatic tension and allow the hero an opportunity to disarm the bomb. Which is why I chose to frame the scenario in more general terms of people in the middle of doing something the government thinks is wrong and the government trying to stop them before they do it. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2008, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/119 "2008-04-10T04:39:55Z")
The first case-no torture. The second case-an unverified story. The third case-mass murder, an unverified claim that the perpetrators were among the murdered, and no (most importantly) nothing was prevented in the nick of time by the torture. You’ve got nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662/120 "2008-04-10T06:56:44Z")
Is anyone else channelling [OoTS](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0547.html)? 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-bomb-scenario/443662.md?page=7)