So when 90 out of 92 (i.e. 97.8% of) terrorist attacks can be successfully avoided by coercive interrogation of captured terrorists, that holds no sway in your reasoning?
Figure that the average terrorist attack kills 15. Figure further that there are an average of 4 terrorists directly in charge of carrying out an attack. Now figure that an average of 1/3rd of captured terrorists are tortured (I saw something to this effect somewhere in my research.) So, 90 prevented attacks means 1,350 lives saved. The cost of saving those lives is varying levels of torture (which, in most cases, amounts to no more than sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and blaring rock n’ roll) of 120 people who each were planning to murder innocent people.
Well, when you put it like that, seems perfectly reasonable. But perhaps you will tell us where these numbers come from, if that’s not too personal a question…
Completely made up, all of it. Useful intelligence coming from torture is vanishingly rare ( and I only say “rare” on the assumption that as some time in human history it must have worked, if only by luck; not because of any evidence ). You grossly understate just how badly we treat people. You completely ignore our innocent victims; you just assume that the people we torture are terrorists. And you assume that the people attacking us ARE terrorists, and that the people they attack are innocent ( hint : torturers aren’t innocent ).
Raid my house and you’ll find similar things. And I’m not a terrorist, just a guy who has a lot of books and downloads a lot of weird shit off the Internet. But in your scenario that’s enough to convict me of terrorism and give the authorities the go ahead to torture me.
And I’ll talk, because sooner or later I’ll reach a breaking point (probably sooner) because no one will step in and say, “This guy’s just a schlub”; I’m already a known terrorist with books and things.
So they go out and bust my friends (whom I’ve squealed on just to stop the torture). They torture them. They break and confess just to stop the torture. And so it goes, like an S&M version of Amway.
Think I’m wrong? Read up on the history of witch hunts.
What’s the difference between a bomb timer and a regular timer? Is being a trained electrical engineer who does not approve of regimes that use torture enough evidence that someone’s a terrorist?
Have you considered the possibility that he doesn’t have compatriots, and isn’t getting supplies from anywhere?
If torture were an effective method of getting this sort of information, Bush and friends would have known for sure that Saddam’s Iraq had fuck-all to do with 9/11, and not wasted our nation’s treasure and reputation on a stupid, useless conquest.
Instead, we have a costly mess, and Cheney, as recently as this past January, still insists there was an operational connection between bin Laden and Saddam.
Way to go torture! You have served this nation well.
Part of the reason they tortured was that the CIA was sorely lacking Arab speaking operatives. We lacked translators and agents. They were doing a terrible job of info gathering and could not supply good intelligence. So in desperation they went to a low and ugly methodology. It was due to decades of poor work at the agencies. It was the fault of poorly run agencies.
When they suddenly needed info on Iraq and Al Queda , it was not there. They had to do something fast.
Of course we all to admit that they tortured a lot of innocent people too. From your viewpoint ,you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. For people who are being tortured ,you have made an enemy of them and their families and friends. We accept the expression “collateral damage”,so easily. But if it were you and your neighbors ,you may not understand so well.
Totrure is better than regular interrogation methods - it gives you the information you want to hear, without the usual limits of whether it’s true or not!
Well, obviously, if we have no apparent evidence, then the first step would be to get some evidence. I’m not a forensic detective, so I don’t know the exact methods used, but I would imagine that one could start by talking to people who know him (friends, relatives, or at least neighbors), subpoenaing his phone and internet records from the phone company and ISP, tracking money that’s going into and out of his accounts, and if we haven’t been so bumblingly inept as to let him now we’re onto him, bugging his home and trailing him when he goes out. And I’m sure that a real detective could think of several other avenues of investigation. Any one of those could yield actual usable information, or at worst if we didn’t get useful information out of them, we’d at least know that we didn’t have any information.