# To torture or not to torture **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 21, 2009, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808 "2009-04-21T02:33:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/41 "2009-04-21T17:52:57Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Oh come on-you cannot drop something like that into a thread without a cite. Maybe he’s remembering [this](http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/the_imprisonmen.html): > [@](#): > > Except now we know that the U.S. has itself detained, imprisoned and interrogated children. The young sons of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed were detained, and used as a lever in the torturing him. We don’t know what was done to them, but one fellow prisoner has claimed that they were mistreated. We do know that KSM was told they were detained, a flagrant violation of international and domestic law. > … > We do know that, in principle, the Bush administration is prepared to torture the children of terrorists, because the chief architect of their detention policy, AEI’s resident war-criminal John Yoo, was quite explicit: > > > [@](#): > > > > Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him? > > > > Yoo: No treaty > > > > Cassel: Also no law by Congress – that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo… > > > > Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that…" ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/42 "2009-04-21T18:37:29Z")
> [@wintertime](#): > > You seriously don’t see his point? You don’t see that what you suggest leads to widespread torture that consequently needs to be executed by a professionalized organization? > > We have names for countries that do such things; \*democracy \*isn’t one of them. Given that my first sentence of my first post said that manpower permitting, the more torture the better so far as information gathering goes, I fail to see where anyone thinks I was being coy. Yes, the more torture, the better, so far as information gathering goes. I’m not dancing around this, and it’s the first thing I said in the thread, so let’s sharpen our reading skills, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/43 "2009-04-21T18:47:18Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The first one is basically a quick trip through the history of ass-covering for torture. We learn a few specifics about how the CIA and the Bush Administration each tried to set things up so that they could blame the other when their crimes came to light. At no point does that article say that the CIA or anybody else ever garnered a single piece of information from torture. The first one quotes Tenet (CIA director) as saying that information gained via torture “was useful and helped save lives”. The second quotes Hayden (CIA director) as saying that “the program got the maximum amount of information”. So we’ve got two experts whose salary and honor are tied up in protecting the nation and her people, and who are possibly the only people in the world who would have actual knowledge of the effectiveness, both saying that real, useful information was gathered and worked to save lives. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/44 "2009-04-21T18:52:11Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > So we’ve got two experts whose salary and honor are tied up in protecting the nation and her people \ Bless your little heart, sweetie. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/45 "2009-04-21T18:54:04Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > By the way, for those who want some sold, expert proof that torture can never produce useful information, I’ve got some. The CIA cites Dr. James Horne’s research as proof that sleep deprivation is a useful technique for extracting information, but they’re lying as usual. How does this prove that torture “can never produce useful information”? It seems to me that this only demonstrates that sleep deprivation doesn’t yield useful info. It doesn’t address torture in general, and it doesn’t even prove that sleep deprivation can never be useful in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/46 "2009-04-21T18:56:04Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > So we’ve got two experts whose salary and honor are tied up in protecting the nation and her people, and who are possibly the only people in the world who would have actual knowledge of the effectiveness, both saying that real, useful information was gathered and worked to save lives. Allow me to rephrase: “So we have two high-profile representatives of US policy who, having potentially been implicated in the administration of war crimes, said exactly what they needed to to best justify their potentially illegal behavior.” See how easy that was? And your phrase has as much facts in evidence as mine does. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/47 "2009-04-21T19:25:48Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > Allow me to rephrase: > > “So we have two high-profile representatives of US policy who, having potentially been implicated in the administration of war crimes, said exactly what they needed to to best justify their potentially illegal behavior.” > > See how easy that was? And your phrase has as much facts in evidence as mine does. Sure, all evidence on the planet says that torture doesn’t work. And I know this because…! Any which says the opposite, especially if it comes from the people who actually have access to the data, **are lying**! Woot! We’ve just proved that torture doesn’t work in a totally valid and unimpeachable method. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/48 "2009-04-21T19:33:21Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Bless your little heart, sweetie. The point isn’t that these are loving carebears. It’s that there’s no reason to think that they’re just acting out of sadistic glee. As a bureaucrat in Washington, I just want to do my job. What motive do I have to endorse techniques that I know don’t work, and which are going to upset nearly all the population of the world for their being used. Why fight that battle when there’s nothing under the cloth? That would be a waste of my time and end up wasting my manpower. It stops me from being able to do my job, endangers my friends and employees. Overall there’s no advantage there. ---
**Author:** ![costa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@costa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/costa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/49 "2009-04-21T19:33:23Z")
I have never been on either side of the torchure rack.but if it saves thousands of lives(as i have been told)the sob that has the information.derserves it. ---
**Author:** ![costa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@costa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/costa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/50 "2009-04-21T19:37:49Z")
the japanese troops(ww2) the viet cong used it not for in formation.(by the time the information was used.it woul it be too late)but for punishment because the reciprecants were on the winning side. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/51 "2009-04-21T19:53:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Sure, all evidence on the planet says that torture doesn’t work. And I know this because…! Any which says the opposite, especially if it comes from the people who actually have access to the data, are lying! Woot! We’ve just proved that torture doesn’t work in a totally valid and unimpeachable method. I never said torture “doesn’t work”. Can the application of physical and psychological coercion to the point where you push another person to their uttermost breaking point actually yield information? Yes, it’s theoretically possible. But it’s even more likely that you’ll get false information, because if you push someone to that breaking point, then they will say _anything_ for you to stop. Even if it’s not the truth but it’s what their torturer wants to hear. The point isn’t that torture can yield the occasional piece of good intel. The point is that it is also going to yield a ton of bad intel. And if we are going to abandon the rule of law and two hundred years of decency, it had better be for a far better reason than “Sometimes-Maybe-ItDepends-NotOften”. Torture poisons everything. It threatens to make the good intel indistinguishable from the bad, and forces the torturers to create a self-perpetuating cycle of torture to justify accumulated indecencies. And why wouldn’t torturers lie about the effectiveness of the results? You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who’s willing to subject an innocent human being to such treatment and then admit that “Oops! Our bad”. These techniques are so horrid, they have to be justified in retrospect because otherwise the monstrousness of such actions become even more self-evident. Even for those we have tortured that were demonstrated to be innocent, we haven’t formally admitted as much. > [@](#): > > As a bureaucrat in Washington, I just want to do my job. What motive do I have to endorse techniques that I know don’t work, and which are going to upset nearly all the population of the world for their being used. Why fight that battle when there’s nothing under the cloth? That would be a waste of my time and end up wasting my manpower. It stops me from being able to do my job, endangers my friends and employees. Overall there’s no advantage there. As a bureaucrat in Washington, you want to keep your job. And if all the traditional interrogation methods (which have actually proven highly effective for many decades and across a myriad of cultures and languages) aren’t giving you the answers you want, then you have two choices: (1) adjust your expectations accordingly, or (2) torture in the unlikely hope of getting intel the conventional methods haven’t. The Big Lie is “We Have to Torture; There’s No Other Avenue Open to Us.” Torture does indeed endanger these people’s colleagues (our troops overseas), but they’re so many miles away and the pressure from the White House is _so_ strong and so close. That’s why they do it. And once they’ve started, it’s like a levee breaking and it’s virtually impossible to stop it. You’ve condoned a Culture of Torture, and it’s easier simply to lie to the American public than to do the honorable thing and simply Stop. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/52 "2009-04-21T19:56:06Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The point isn’t that these are loving carebears. It’s that there’s no reason to think that they’re just acting out of sadistic glee. Sadistic glee ? No. But the first and foremost goal of any organisation is self-perpetuation. Government organisations doubly so, and spy agencies triply so. The idea that the CIA acts for the greater good, or even for the greater American good is laughable. Also, you’ll excuse me if I think calling a person whose entire job consists of lying, stealing, eavesdropping, sneaking around, kidnapping, blackmailing, torturing and assassinating people a quote man of honor unquote is beyond laughable. Or that the man is above bullshitting a journalist in the off chance that maybe it’ll save his ass at a time when policy changes, the new foreman is asking what the white-hot poker is for, doesn’t look pleased with the answer and starts showing it to everyone. > [@](#): > > As a bureaucrat in Washington, I just want to do my job. No, you just want to \*keep \*your job. So if the man in the Oval Office says “torture 'em !” even when you send him memos telling him it’s useless, you bloody well go and torture 'em, don’t you ? Maybe the man isn’t pleased with the right answers, and wants a wrong answer he can wave around as a pretext. > [@](#): > > What motive do I have to endorse techniques that I know don’t work, and which are going to upset nearly all the population of the world for their being used. Maybe they figured, at the time, that no one would ever know. After all, an intelligence agency should know a thing or two about keeping secrets and setting evidence lockers on fire. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/53 "2009-04-21T20:17:09Z")
From Andrew Sullivan today: > [@](#): > > A reader makes an excellent point: > > > [@](#): > > > > So here’s a question for the torture defenders: > > > > Let’s assume that these methods are (1) useful (2) safe when performed under the OLC guidelines (3) necessary to keep as options for the future > > > > If so, how could tapes of successful interrogations (or even some which were not successful) not be the single most valuable training tool available to future generations of interrogators? How could they not have any “intelligence value” as a training tool? > > So why were they destroyed? We know why, of course. They shock the conscience and prove that the United States is a torturing nation. Without them, the lies, increasingly threadbare, can nonetheless continue. With the tapes viewable, as with the photos at Abu Ghraib, the war crimes trial begins. And Bush and Cheney go into the dock first. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/54 "2009-04-21T20:50:32Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The first one quotes Tenet (CIA director) as saying that information gained via torture “was useful and helped save lives”. The second quotes Hayden (CIA director) as saying that “the program got the maximum amount of information”. > > So we’ve got two experts whose salary and honor are tied up in protecting the nation and her people, and who are possibly the only people in the world who would have actual knowledge of the effectiveness, both saying that real, useful information was gathered and worked to save lives. 1. The first paper does not quote Tenet as saying torture “was useful and saved lives”. That quote comes instead from a good, old-fashioned anonymous source. So far from the speaker putting his salary and honor on the line, we instead have a speaker who very definitely wants to avoid doing so. 2. As regards the second quote, Michael Hayden was not putting his salary and honor on the line either. He was testifying in 2009, three years after his retirement. Back in January it still seemed possible that the Obama Administration would bring some of the Bush-era criminals to justice. Knowing that, Hayden’s answers look much more like an attempt to worm away from his own guilt. 3. In neither article does the speaker use the word “torture” to describe what they’re supporting. Hayden is particular is very clear about the fact that he opposes torture. 4. As I mentioned once and you seem determined to ignore, the article about Hayden doesn’t say the slightest bit about what sort of information was gained by these interrogation methods, or gives us the slightest reason to believe that the CIA or the military ever picked up anything useful. 5. The entire U. S. government has a long record of dishonesty on the question of torture. When sources in 2003 first reported that torture was happening, the government denied it completely and categorically. When photos from Abu Ghraib surfaced in 2004, we were told that only “a few bad eggs” were involved. As further discoveries of widespread torture were discovered, the government continued to insist that it had never been sanctioned. When memos were released proving that Bush and Cheney had ordered the use of torture, then we got this lame-brained argument about torture being useful. Since they’ve been lying to us at every step of the way, why would any sane person suddenly trust them at this particular stage of denial? 6. Lastly, to state the obvious, the CIA has a culture of secrecy, denial, and dishonesty that dates from decades prior to the current torture regime. There’s no reason to believe that it changed when they started water-boarding innocent people after 9/11. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/55 "2009-04-21T20:58:19Z")
If time is so critical that you absolutely need the answers RIGHT NOW, instead of spending the time on intelligence methods that actually work, then why use something as slow as torture? You can get information that’s just as good, and much quicker, by rolling a die, and it doesn’t even have all of those inconvenient moral objections the squeamish will raise for torture. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/56 "2009-04-21T21:02:44Z")
But it does work fast! “24” was a documentary! As Scalia asked, in all seriousness, [“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?”](http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/scalia_and_tort.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/57 "2009-04-21T21:27:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If time is so critical that you absolutely need the answers RIGHT NOW, instead of spending the time on intelligence methods that actually work, then why use something as slow as torture? You can get information that’s just as good, and much quicker, by rolling a die, and it doesn’t even have all of those inconvenient moral objections the squeamish will raise for torture. \ Well that’s just stupid. You want to know a random number, you don’t ask the die - he’s going to lie through it’s little die teeth. \ ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/58 "2009-04-22T00:28:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If time is so critical that you absolutely need the answers RIGHT NOW, instead of spending the time on intelligence methods that actually work, then why use something as slow as torture? What other methods? Unlike CSI, you can’t just walk into a room and determine everyone who has been in there in the last four years and what they were doing every time they were in the room. Okay, so say we get a tip that one guy is a terrorist. We raid his room and find that he has anti-American writings and schematics for a bomb timer. There’s no apparent evidence of who his compatriots might be, where they meet, or where they would get their supplies from. The guy himself steadfastly refuses to say anything. Well so, where do you go from there? We’re not tracking down people who have already committed a crime. We’re tracking down active enemy combatants who are going to continue to stage attacks so long as they are left to roam. So what, we find someone who looks a bit like this guy and do him up with plastic surgery and makeup to look the same? Hope that he gets spotted by a conspirator and can bluff through not knowing anything about anything? No, essentially we’re at a dead end. This one guy we have may have led to finding twenty other guys, whose names we could probably get in a few days, and all their sources of materials–but nope. Another technique we can try is to set up a dummy organization selling goods. Alright, well that may work, but this could take months, a significant outlay of money and resources, and ultimately have very little probability of success. Yet another technique is trying to infiltrate them, if you can find a native speaker who can act convincingly–but again, this will take months or years to provide results, if the undercover agent doesn’t get outed or otherwise killed. You’ve got to assign people to watch him, supply him with bugs, the results of which need to be constantly monitored, etc. So: 1 week for good, direct intel at low cost versus Months or years and significant resources for no guaranteed intel Going by your criteria of fast, strong results at low cost, torture seems to be the winner. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/59 "2009-04-22T01:43:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Put me down in “not torture” group. Torture is simply wrong and should be banned as a matter of principle regardless of whether or not it’s effective. I’m joining your group. ---
**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 22, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808/60 "2009-04-22T03:21:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > So: > > 1 week for good, direct intel at low cost > > versus > > Months or years and significant resources for no guaranteed intel > > Going by your criteria of fast, strong results at low cost, torture seems to be the winner. But that’s not what the results of torture ARE. You are engaging in faith based sadism. You just _know_ torture works better, and you want torture to go on no matter how little evidence there is that it’s useful. It doesn’t matter to you how badly it’s failed, how many enemies it’s made, or that the actual professionals say it’s a bad idea - you just KNOW that it’s the key to “good, direct intel at low cost”. Instead of bad intel at massive cost, which is the truth. There’s also the fact that if you are torturing people it’s highly questionable that the people you are torturing are wrong to try to kill you in the first place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/493808.md?page=4)