The last one is especially interesting as he gives solid numbers about the inefficiency of torture.
Don’t take my word for it, take the word of the FBI’s former al Queda interrogator, Jack Cloonan. I don’t have a text transcription, but he describes getting valid information from them, and how we lost valuable intelligence assets to torture. I don’t have the link, but professionals in the field generally disdain torture as “that alpha male bullshit”.
I say it doesn’t work because interrogation professionals say it doesn’t work. I say it doesn’t work because all it does is make martyrs of people who fervently desire to become martyrs. I say it doesn’t work because the information obtained via torture is inadmissible in any court of law.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
You’re an infantryman in Bastogne and it’s December 1944. In the last six months, you’ve killed dozens of German soldiers in battle and been almost killed by German soldiers as many times. The German Army has just launched a major surprise attack and your position has been surrounded. You’ve captured a German soldier and you know he has information about the attack. He knows how many German soldiers are out there, how many tanks and airplanes and artillery pieces there are, and how close they are and if they’re heading in your direction. If you have this information it might save your life and the lives of everyone else in your platoon.
[/QUOTE]
But as you said, that is a fictional situation. Further, why would I, the sleepy-eyed guy in third squad care how many tanks are coming. I already know, a lot of them.
Is there a historical example of a captured prisoner having important time-critical information? (Heck, when I write it that way, the answer has to be yes, but I’ll be darned if I can think of one.)
Is there a historical example of a captured prisoner having important time-critical information? (Heck, when I write it that way, the answer has to be yes, but I’ll be darned if I can think of one.)
[/QUOTE]
Id probably guess that mini sub that was sunk by the destroyer on december 7 / 41, a couple of minutes warning could have changed the order of battle for the first half of the pacific war.
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99]
I still don’t get how you can stick anybody’s lips in a food processor without cutting them off first.
[/QUOTE]
I suppose it depends on the model of food processor, and the morphology of the lips, but - and I realise it’s not meant to be a funny thread - I can’t help finding the idea amusing…
Interrogator: Tell us where the bomb is! Suspect: Never! Interrogator: Tell us, or we’ll put your lips in a food processor Suspect: You’ll never make me t… Wait… did you just say you’d put my lips in a food processor? My lips? Interrogator: Just tell us where you put the bomb! Suspect: I mean, how would that even work? If you’re going to cut off my lips, it doesn’t really matter what you put them in afterwards… Interrogator: Fingers. We’ll put your fucking fingers in a food processor! Suspect: Yeah, but you said ‘lips’. What kind of messed up shit is that? Interrogator 2: Yeah, you did say ‘lips’… Interrogator: Shut up!
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
And quite frankly, you’re wrong. By your logic, there’s no point in asking anyone any question because you have no way of telling whether their answer is true or false. But the obvious reality is that we can usually figure out ways to tell whether or not somebody is lying to us when they answer our questions. so torture does work. It doesn’t produce truth. But it does produce answers. And then the questioner can figure out ways to seperate true answers from false answers.
[/QUOTE]
The things is, that if you are going to depend on your enemy to help you out, you are in for a world of hurt. The best way to get information from a detainee is to convince him that you are not, in fact, a monster that deserves to be killed at all costs. The more you torture someone chances are that the more he will want to see you incinerated by the nuke he planted.
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Interrogator: Tell us where the bomb is! Suspect: Never! Interrogator: Tell us, or we’ll put your lips in a food processor Suspect: You’ll never make me t… Wait… did you just say you’d put my lips in a food processor? My lips? Interrogator: Just tell us where you put the bomb! Suspect: I mean, how would that even work? If you’re going to cut off my lips, it doesn’t really matter what you put them in afterwards… Interrogator: Fingers. We’ll put your fucking fingers in a food processor! Suspect: Yeah, but you said ‘lips’. What kind of messed up shit is that? Interrogator 2: Yeah, you did say ‘lips’… Interrogator: Shut up!
[/QUOTE]
Suspect: That´s what I´ve been trying to do but you threaten me to put my lips on a food processor if I don´t say anything. Interrogator: No, you don´t shut up, YOU (points at Interrogator 2) shut up. Interrogator2: But I just wanted to point out that…
**Interrogator: **If you don´t stop talking I put your lips on a food processor, get it? Suspect: Could we just go back to the electrodes on the testicles and forget about this?
Interrogator: Having applied torture or clever psychology or convinced you that we’re genuinely nice people, we’ve got you in a frame of mind where you’ll answer our question. So tell us, where is the bomb? Suspect: It’s in a garage on Main Street next to the bus depot. It’s hidden in the back of a red van. Interrogator: Damn, there’s no way we can tell whether or not you’re telling us the truth. Interrogator 2: Couldn’t we just go and look inside that garage and see if the bomb’s there? Interrogator: No, we’re not allowed to seek any outside evidence to confirm or deny the truth of any statements he’s made.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
I’m thinking more along these lines:
Interrogator: Having applied torture or clever psychology or convinced you that we’re genuinely nice people, we’ve got you in a frame of mind where you’ll answer our question. So tell us, where is the bomb? Suspect: It’s in a garage on Main Street next to the bus depot. It’s hidden in the back of a red van. Interrogator: Damn, there’s no way we can tell whether or not you’re telling us the truth. Interrogator 2: Couldn’t we just go and look inside that garage and see if the bomb’s there? Interrogator: No, we’re not allowed to seek any outside evidence to confirm or deny the truth of any statements he’s made.
[/QUOTE]
So, instead of these hypotheticals, can you provide, in any way, shape, or form, outside of the context of a fictional movie or TV show, any incidence in which torture has provided timely information which has manifestly improved security for the interrogators?
For extra credit, please compare the presumed benefits of torture versus the political and strategic ramifications of damage to the international reputation of the United States as the superpower with a self-presumed high moral character after violating the tenets of freedom, self-determination, and just due process that result from unlawful detentions, secret trials, and torture.
Where did I say torture was a good idea? Torture is immoral and wrong.
Murder is immoral and wrong also. But I don’t pretend it doesn’t kill people so I can claim that murder is immoral and wrong and ineffective.
Torture works. Why do you think organizations like the KGB and the Gestapo and SAVAK used it? Do you think they tortured thousands of people over the years just for their own amusment? No, they understood that torture was an effective way of gaining information and ignored the moral costs of using it.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Torture works. Why do you think organizations like the KGB and the Gestapo and SAVAK used it? Do you think they tortured thousands of people over the years just for their own amusment? No, they understood that torture was an effective way of gaining information and ignored the moral costs of using it.
[/QUOTE]
Well that’s a sound argument, as any member of the KGB, the Gestapo, or the Savak can attest to. Let’s just dial up someone from one of those organizations…just a minute, I’m looking up the number…hmmm, Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti doesn’t seem to be listed in my Moscow directory. Let’s try the Geheime Staatspolizei…nope. Hell, Tehrain information? I’m looking for Sazeman-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar…what? The Shaw is out of town? Damn. Will no one resolve this issue? Wait, I’ll call up Jack Bauer…
More seriously, the KGB and its predecessors was never so interested in obtaining accurate information from a subject as just getting a confession to any transgression, real or imagined, or indeed, supplied by the interrogators if the subject is insufficiently creative. This behavior is well-established; start with Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago and go through any other history of the purges and state security apparatus of the Soviet Union. The Gestapo was similarly ineffective in obtaining any wealth of information, although they were remarkably effective at terrorizing the domestic populace and formenting resentment even in Germany. As for the Savak, who were largely trained by the Israeli Mossad, despite a noted prediliction for extreme methods of torture that would even make Dick Cheney cough, they were utterly surprised by the speed of rise in fundamentalist Islam and resultant displacement of the Shaw’s regime.
If you’re going to pick abstract examples in which torture served some successful end, you might want to pick organizations that were ultimately successful.
Meanwhile, you are again challenged to demonstrate a single real world case in which information extracted via torture significantly improved the immediate security of people under threat per the o.p.'s hypothetical “Ticking Bomb” scenerio.
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
The Gestapo was similarly ineffective in obtaining any wealth of information, although they were remarkably effective at terrorizing the domestic populace and formenting resentment even in Germany.
[/QUOTE]
Precisely, all the examples of goverment (or hush-hush grverment) approved torture that I can think off are more related to terrifying the population into compliance with the thugs in charge than a genuine interest in gaining information. It´s more efficient, from an amoral, ruthless despotic goverment at least, to smother any ideas of getting uppity in a blanket of terror.
So your argument is that torture never produces any useful information and its only purpose is so the government can cow its subjects into submission. And governments that use torture are overthrown by its subjects.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
So your argument is that torture never produces any useful information and its only purpose is so the government can cow its subjects into submission. And governments that use torture are overthrown by its subjects.
Yes, I can see where that’s a logical argument.
[/QUOTE]
Refute with example, please. Show me that the KGB or Gestapo ever reliably used torture to obtain critical, timely information about plots against those regimes, rather than as a means to extract confessions of dubious factual merit.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
It would be pretty weird if torture could never produce useful information - that would be a phenomenon requiring explanation.
[/QUOTE]
The contention is not that torture never produces information, but rather the hypothetical justification–that one must torture in order to produce accurate, timely information about an impending action–is specious and without empirical basis. And even when torture does produce information, it is unreliable at best, compared to information obtained by other methods.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
So your argument is that torture never produces any useful information and its only purpose is so the government can cow its subjects into submission. And governments that use torture are overthrown by its subjects.
Yes, I can see where that’s a logical argument.
[/QUOTE]
Of course it’s logical. He/she is arguing that it’s stupid. That governments do it out of a desire for power, and instead it brings them down.
I largely agree, except that I’d add sadism and revenge as motives. And before you say “Well, then, why haven’t all torture using governments collapsed ?”, it’s because those governments are strong enough to survive a certain amount of stupidity. Or because they are seen as only torturing an unpopular minority, that isn’t strong enough to endanger the government. They will still be weakening themselves, however.
No prob. I just emailed the Russian and German embassies and asked them to send me all their classified files from the Soviet and Nazi eras. I explained to them I needed them for a debate on a message board so I’m sure they’ll be willing to send me a bunch of secret intelligence information. Hey, that stuff was old anyway. Then I’ll run it through babelfish and pick out the good stuff and post it here. I should have it by the weekend.
Is there a term for the fallacious argument of insisting on an impossible cite? If not, then I want Stranger to post a copy of the KGB operations manual in which they tell their interrogators to ignore any statements made by torture victims. Because Stranger claims that KGB knew that the purpose of torture is to terrorize opposition not to gain information and that any information gained is false. Undoubtedly the KGB made sure to warn its trainee torturers of this so they wouldn’t mistakenly believe what their victims were telling them. So Stranger should have no problem in documenting this assertion and posting it here.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Is there a term for the fallacious argument of insisting on an impossible cite? If not, then I want Stranger to post a copy of the KGB operations manual in which they tell their interrogators to ignore any statements made by torture victims. Because Stranger claims that KGB knew that the purpose of torture is to terrorize opposition not to gain information and that any information gained is false. Undoubtedly the KGB made sure to warn its trainee torturers of this so they wouldn’t mistakenly believe what their victims were telling them. So Stranger should have no problem in documenting this assertion and posting it here.
[/QUOTE]
You have intentionally exaggerated and misrepresented what I’ve said in order to avoid addressing the question, i.e. that a rational justification for torture can be made from essential necessity of extracting accurate information of a time-critical nature. Please burn your strawman somewhere else. I’m not asking for an “impossible cite”, but rather a single example that presents a real situation in which they hypothetical scenario posited by the o.p.–that interrogation using physical torture has provided “information about a ticking bomb that will go off in the next few minutes”–has actually happened, and has been effective in averting said hazard. Just present one non-fictional, non-hypothetical example of “24” style torture interrogation that has rendered accurate, reliable information used to avert a timely attack or sabotage.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
You’re an infantryman in Bastogne and it’s December 1944. In the last six months, you’ve killed dozens of German soldiers in battle and been almost killed by German soldiers as many times. The German Army has just launched a major surprise attack and your position has been surrounded. You’ve captured a German soldier and you know he has information about the attack. He knows how many German soldiers are out there, how many tanks and airplanes and artillery pieces there are, and how close they are and if they’re heading in your direction. If you have this information it might save your life and the lives of everyone else in your platoon.
Now if you’re shocked because I used an American example, make my hypothetical soldier Russian or German or Japanese. Make it a different war if you want. And you think nobody in history ever picked up a knife and tortured that prisoner?
[/QUOTE]
I’m not shocked at all. I felt sure you were making the whole thing up. I asked for an example, and you spewed out fiction. I wasn’t even born til 1949. The ticking time bomb is a favorite plot device in Hollywood. Maybe that’s where you “remembered” it from. Like Ronald Reagan, you spit out a cinematic moment as truth.
I challenged your first post in this thread, where you said:
You didn’t say what “it” was, so I assumed you were talking about the “ticking time bomb scenario.” That’s what the thread’s about. Your hypothetical situation has nothing to do with a ticking time bomb.
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
The contention is not that torture never produces information, but rather the hypothetical justification–that one must torture in order to produce accurate, timely information about an impending action–is specious and without empirical basis. And even when torture does produce information, it is unreliable at best, compared to information obtained by other methods.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not going to argue in favour of torture - I completely agree that it’s wrong and ineffective - it’s just that in asking for an example where quality information was ever obtained, you may appear to be arguing from a position that it can’t possibly ever work, which is not in fact your contention.
[QUOTE=tschild]
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).
In the trial of the responsible police vice chief (who had ordered the threat) and the investigating policeman (who uttered the threat) the court ruled that the threat was illegal and that there could be no justification whatsoever for threatening torture, but it also went out of its way to apply all manners of mitigating considerations (moral conflict; the police vice chief turned himself in with a memo to the prosecutor), arriving at suspendeds fines equivalent to 90 and 60 days of incarceration.
[/QUOTE]
It seems like this post pretty much sums it up. Does anyone think that the police vice chief and investigating policeman made a habit of randomly tortuing people left and right? Clearly, not. And yet they were, in a once-in-a-lifetime situation, presented with a situation in which torture (or, in this case, the thread of torture) had the potential to save a life. They applied that threat, and they received information (the location of a body) which they could independently verify (by digging up that body). Then they faced judgment for their action, the authorities reasserted their stand that torture is never an acceptable legal option, and they got off with relative pats on the wrist.
The system worked.
