# Torture, Coercion, The Dark Art of Interrogation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317 "2004-05-09T18:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/1 "2004-05-09T18:49:52Z")
With the pictures from Abu Ghraib hitting main stream media this week, much has been discussed about proper treatment of prisoners. While most reject such methods as piling naked prisoners on top of each other, or ordering them to masturbate, some claim that forcing prisoners to stand for hours or “roughing them up” is not only necessary, but a fair game. The topic of this debate is the task of gathering information from detainees during a time of war. What techniques should be available to interrogators? Where do we draw the line between torture and coercion? How much restrain should a civic society apply in its treatment of prisoners - when it’s a possibility that the prisoner have information that could save lives? And should non-citizens really be treated differently than “fifth-columnist” citizens? Background: Washington Post published a story, [Pentagon Approved Tougher Interrogations](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11017-2004May8.html), yesterday: > [@](#): > > In April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and “sensory assault,” including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials. > > The classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and represents the first publicly known documentation of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and psychologically stressful methods during questioning. > … > Defense and intelligence officials said similar guidelines have been approved for use on “high-value detainees” in Iraq – those suspected of terrorism or of having knowledge of insurgency operations. Separate CIA guidelines exist for agency-run detention centers. A detailed article on this subject, [The Dark Art of Interrogation](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/10/bowden.htm), was published in October last year by Mark Bowden, a correspondent and author of six books, in The Atlantic: > [@](#): > > The word “torture” comes from the Latin verb torquere, “to twist.” Webster’s New World Dictionary offers the following primary definition: “The inflicting of severe pain to force information and confession, get revenge, etc.” Note the adjective “severe,” which summons up images of the rack, thumbscrews, gouges, branding irons, burning pits, impaling devices, electric shock, and all the other devilish tools devised by human beings to mutilate and inflict pain on others. > > Then there are methods that, some people argue, fall short of torture. Called “torture lite,” these include sleep deprivation, exposure to heat or cold, the use of drugs to cause confusion, rough treatment (slapping, shoving, or shaking), forcing a prisoner to stand for days at a time or to sit in uncomfortable positions, and playing on his fears for himself and his family. Although excruciating for the victim, these tactics generally leave no permanent marks and do no lasting physical harm. > > The Geneva Convention makes no distinction: it bans any mistreatment of prisoners. But some nations that are otherwise committed to ending brutality have employed torture lite under what they feel are justifiable circumstances. > > [M]any veteran interrogators believe that the use of such methods to extract information is justified if it could save lives - whether by forcing an enemy soldier to reveal his army’s battlefield positions or forcing terrorists to betray the details of ongoing plots. As these interrogators see it, the well-being of the captive must be weighed against the lives that might be saved by forcing him to talk. A method that produces life-saving information without doing lasting harm to anyone is not just preferable; it appears to be morally sound. International law, regulations on this subject: > [@](#): > > The most venerable [provisions] are those in the Geneva Convention, but the United States has sidestepped this agreement in the case of those captured in the war on terror. The next most important would be those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which asserts, in Article 5, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” There is also the Convention Against Torture, the agreement cited by Bush in June, which would seem to rule out any of the more aggressive methods of interrogation. It states, in Article I, “For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.” Again, note the word “severe.” Bowden also claims that western intelligence sometimes use drugs to get detainees to speak: > [@](#): > > According to my intelligence sources, drugs are today sometimes used to assist in critical interrogations, and the preferred ones are methamphetamines tempered with barbiturates and cannabis. These tools can help, but they are only as effective as the interrogator. So bring it on. What’s your opinion? (no Bush/Kerry bashing please) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/2 "2004-05-09T21:25:46Z")
OK, how about turnabout is fair play. Do we have documentation on how they treated our service personnel when they are captured that will stand up to verification _without any doubt_ Do the exact same things they did to our service personnel to theirs. When they whine, tell them they did it to us, we do it to them. Not that it would actualy stop them from whining about things, but maybe then the rest of the world and certain groups of americans would stop whining about us. I might add, I think we get medical treatment to our prisoners of war both faster and of better quality than they do to our injured captives. Not that I would actually recommend any lessening of our standards of medical care, but I think that is something that should be pointed out as well. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/3 "2004-05-09T22:45:17Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > With the pictures from Abu Ghraib hitting main stream media this week, much has been discussed about proper treatment of prisoners. While most reject such methods as piling naked prisoners on top of each other, or ordering them to masturbate, some claim that forcing prisoners to stand for hours or “roughing them up” is not only necessary, but a fair game. Well, right now it looks like some one in Mil inteligence was aware of a weak chain of command , from Gen Kapinski on down , and took major advantage of it. The agressive interogations looked like they were part of a psy-ops campaign strictly aimed at muslim or arab men. So by the time , these inmates were brought before the military intel people , they have been prepped , thus the mil/int peeps can be the good cops > [@](#): > > The topic of this debate is the task of gathering information from detainees during a time of war. What techniques should be available to interrogators? Where do we draw the line between torture and coercion? How much restrain should a civic society apply in its treatment of prisoners - when it’s a possibility that the prisoner have information that could save lives? And should non-citizens really be treated differently than “fifth-columnist” citizens? What I would personally do , is to stick em in a bathtub , with the water temp at 85 degrees, and ambient air temp at 87. Apply an epidural just below the neck and give the subject some ketamine and valium. Done right ,and video taped , the subject should be horrified to watch himself/herself spilling the beans on a variety of subjects. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/4 "2004-05-10T00:44:10Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > OK, how about turnabout is fair play. > > Do we have documentation on how they treated our service personnel when they are captured that will stand up to verification _without any doubt_ > > Do the exact same things they did to our service personnel to theirs. When they whine, tell them they did it to us, we do it to them. Interesting. So you mean that what they do to us, that’s how far we, if needed, should go with them. How do you deal with multi-national terror groups, for instance an al Qaeda operative from Italy? Do you differentiate between citizens/non-citizens or low/mid/high level operatives? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/5 "2004-05-10T04:29:03Z")
Coercion is wrong, period. The fact that other people do it doesn’t make it ok. Neither we nor anyone else should be subjecting prisoners of war (or for that matter prisoners of civil authority) to involuntary drugging, sleep deprivation, deliberately uncomfortable temperatures or other surroundings, food or water deprivation, or threats of violence let alone actual violence. ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/6 "2004-05-10T10:17:45Z")
60 minutes tonight had an interesting segment on torture used by Saudi Arabia police to make some people confess. Extracted from [LINK](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/06/60minutes/main615986.shtml) > [@](#): > > Sampson was blindfolded and driven to a closely guarded building on the outskirts of Riyadh, which is the detention center of the Mabahith - the Saudi security police. There, he was tortured into confessing that he had carried out those bombings. > > “It initially started with punchings and kickings, and that progressed from beating me on the soles of my feet to being hung upside down in a position known as the chicken – with your feet uppermost and your feet and backside exposed, readily available for beating,” says Sampson. “And between interrogation sessions, I was returned to the same cell and handcuffed to the door, so I couldn’t sit down and I couldn’t sleep.” > > He said that after being beating on the soles of his feet and chained to the door, he stood in agony: “There’s no way you can, I could even kneel down in that position, and so I’d be standing on my feet which were swollen, so badly swollen that they were actually exuding plasma through the skin.” > > How long did it take before he confessed? “On the night of the sixth day is when I started to confess, when I would, I couldn’t take any more,” says Sampson. “At that stage, I mean, I used to pray that, I would pray during the beatings that I would black out, and I never did. And by that stage, I was actually praying that I would just die.” The people mentioned in the above story claim they had nothing to do with the incidents that they were being charged with BUT they confessed anyway, due to the torture sessions. From a human point of view, I want to say and believe that torture is always wrong. OTOH, there does need to be a way to extract useful information from prisoners. What do you say to a partisan from the other side of the fence? Pretty please, tell us all you know and we’ll give you an ice cream? Knowing next to nothing about interrogation techniques, I don’t know what methods work best. However, given that torture has been with us throughout much of mankind’s history, until we are able to develop some sort of brain tap that can directly extract information from a suspect, then I fear that torture will always be with us. At least devices and techniques like these are not used any more: [Link](http://www.torturamuseum.com/instruments.html). I saw this exhibition a few years back when it came to town here. It was both fascinating and scary to see to what depths of depravity the human mind can go. If you ever get a chance to see this exhibition, I would strongly recommend that you do so. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/7 "2004-05-10T12:13:56Z")
> [@iamme99](#): > > From a human point of view, I want to say and believe that torture is always wrong. OTOH, there does need to be a way to extract useful information from prisoners. I disagree vehemently with the latter statement. And exponentially more so if the “way” is torture. Your own quote proves that anybody can be made to “confess” facts that aren’t true. The same happened in Iraq. In their zeal to “extract useful information from prisoners”, the occupation resorted to torture. Unfortunately, **most of the prisoners were innocent.** In fact, most of the premises themselves (WMD, and later insurgency) were **false**. Given that, the use of torture only amplified the false conclusions. Which in turn led to wrongful military actions like [this moque raid](http://www.empirenotes.org/abuhanifa.html). Also remember that the mutilation of the four mercenaries in Fallujah was provoked by an earlier raid by occupation forces, where they went in, shot up innocent civilians and property, and found nothing. Iraq proves that torture (relying on confessions) is _counter-productive_. It leads to the opposite of what you want. In this case, spectacularly so. I believe that it has long been a central principle in Western law enforcement that one should rely on **evidence** , not confessions, in the prosecution of criminal activity. IMHO this principle extends to terrorism. If you’re looking for WMD, the only way to find them is to go after the **evidence**. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/8 "2004-05-10T14:13:07Z")
In any society which cares about the guilt or innocence of the accused (Saudi Arabia is not such a society), torture as a means of obtaining evidence is useless, because it can get a confession to anything from anyone. whether they actually committed the crime or not. Torture as a means of gathering information is also of limited value for the same reason: it can get any information you like from anyone, but there’s no guarantee as to its accuracy: eventually, the victim will say anything he or she figures the interrogator will want to hear, in order to stop the mistreatment. The thing that concerns me about the mistreatment at Abu Gharib is that I’ve seen little or no evidence was made that the torture was targetted at relatively few individuals who might have useful information (about Ba’athist or Al Qaeda ops) to impart – it seems to have been implemented on a fairly wide scale. This is just about guaranteed to lead to abuse of the innocent. As for techniques, I suppose after you’ve determined that a suspect probably is a terrorist who knows the location and activities of other terrorists, denial of clothing, food, sleep, etc. seem fair, so long as they aren’t so sustained as to permanently do the suspect physical harm. And I don’t mind taking advantage of the hangups of Islamic society wrt women and nudity – having female soldiers laugh at the naked genitals of terrorists seems almost light-hearted, compared to what real torturers do. Photographing suspects while in this situation also seems fair play. We are talking about life-saving info, after all. However, rape, beatings, murder and forced simulation of intercourse is out of the question, and in the absence of a really serious vetting process to make sure that detainees who get this treatment are the ones who can provide info … well, that just makes criminals of us all. What I’ve seen of Abu Gharib indicates a process gone out of control. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/9 "2004-05-10T14:23:27Z")
IMO, there is no excuse for the infliction of needless pain and suffering on others. Torture, almost by definition, inflicts needless pain and suffering on some of its victims, so should never be permitted. Setting aside for the moment the moral aspects, torture, even if done for the most “noble” of reasons, is a crude fishing expedition, in which the torturers have little or no evidence that the person being tortured has any usable information. This pretty much guarantees that some pecentage of the persons tortured had suffering inflicted on them for no reason at all. In the case of Abu Ghraib, a radio report on the BBC this morning quoted a spokesperson for the ICRC as saying that the Red Cross believed that anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of the prisoners there were innocent of any definable crime. This figure may be exaggerated, but even if it were, this makes it highly likely that a number of perfectly innocent persons were tortured by US military personnel. Beyond that, the willingness of the captors to come with various imaginative and elaborate means to “stress” Iraqi prisoners, based on vague requests by intelligence officers to “soften them up” for questioning, shows once again that torture is really more a means for a captor to carry out what he or she feels is just punishment for perceived crimes, than a way to dispassionately extract information. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/10 "2004-05-10T14:50:41Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Interesting. So you mean that what they do to us, that’s how far we, if needed, should go with them. How do you deal with multi-national terror groups, for instance an al Qaeda operative from Italy? Do you differentiate between citizens/non-citizens or low/mid/high level operatives? The point is IRAQ here, nothing more. Specifically our treatment of prisoners. Not al Qaeda, not other terrorist groups. IRAQ. How did Husseins government treat our personnel in the same situation? Do we have a pair of brothers running around randomly torturing and killing people? What did their guards do to our personnel? I seem to remember footage shown on tv involving 4 live and wounded and a number of deceased soldiers. Hm, geneva convention prohibits filming and publically showing the questioning of prisoners, yet the prisoners were asked questions [granted what they showed was something like ‘how did you get here’ or ‘why are you here’ questions…but they are still questions.] If they blithly ignore one part of the Geneva Convention, what else are they doing that never made it into a news report? Chemical and biological warfare … we found solitoxin and nitrogen mustard detectors in the Brit’s compound were tripped, demonstrating the use against us. Use of US POWs as hostages in facilities that were probably targets for bombing… And how about that POW from the FIRST Desert Storm? they have found evidence of him through last year though he can’t be found now…rape of female prisoners … give you the warm fuzzies yet? I am not saying that I actually approve of what did happen, I am just saying Pot, meet Kettle, Kettle, meet Pot. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/11 "2004-05-10T15:12:36Z")
I was given to understand that the inhabitants of Abu Ghraib were common Iraqi offenders, i.e., thieves and assaultive persons and other lawbreakers, rather than political prisoners seriously thought to be participants in organized rebellion against US occupation and/or members of Al Qaeda. The treatment would not have been appropriate or justified if every torture victim had been a card-carrying member of the Osama bin Laden Society for the Annihilation of All That’s American, but quite aside from that, there was no legitimate reason to think we had anything to learn from them. We have become the people that our patriotic ancestors warned us about. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/12 "2004-05-10T15:46:27Z")
> [@](#): > > The point is IRAQ here, nothing more. Specifically our treatment of prisoners. Not al Qaeda, not other terrorist groups. IRAQ. OK, fair enough. But I want **the scope of this thread is to go beyond Iraq** : To what extent should torture and/or coercion be available to extract information from terrorists? I find this subjet fascinating, and it has not been discussed much in the western world, with the exception of in Israel. Let me emphasize, I do not advocate torture myself. Let me inject two real world scenarios for you: \*"I sat in that swank hotel drinking tea with a much decorated, battle-hardened Sri Lankan army officer charged with fighting the LTTE and protecting the lives of Colombo’s citizens. I cannot use his real name, so I will call him Thomas. … “By going through the process of laws,” Thomas patiently explained, as a parent or a teacher might speak to a bright yet uncomprehending child, “you cannot fight terrorism.” Terrorism, he believed, could be fought only by thoroughly “terrorizing” the terrorists - that is, inflicting on them the same pain that they inflict on the innocent. Thomas had little confidence that I understood what he was saying. I was an academic, he said, with no actual experience of the life-and-death choices and the immense responsibility borne by those charged with protecting society from attack. Accordingly, he would give me an example of the split-second decisions he was called on to make. At the time, Colombo was on “code red” emergency status, because of intelligence that the LTTE was planning to embark on a campaign of bombing public gathering places and other civilian targets. Thomas’s unit had apprehended three terrorists who, it suspected, had recently planted somewhere in the city a bomb that was then ticking away, the minutes counting down to catastrophe. The three men were brought before Thomas. He asked them where the bomb was. The terrorists - highly dedicated and steeled to resist interrogation - remained silent. Thomas asked the question again, advising them that if they did not tell him what he wanted to know, he would kill them. They were unmoved. So Thomas took his pistol from his gun belt, pointed it at the forehead of one of them, and shot him dead. The other two, he said, talked immediately; the bomb, which had been placed in a crowded railway station and set to explode during the evening rush hour, was found and defused, and countless lives were saved. On other occasions, Thomas said, similarly recalcitrant terrorists were brought before him. It was not surprising, he said, that they initially refused to talk; they were schooled to withstand harsh questioning and coercive pressure. No matter: a few drops of gasoline flicked into a plastic bag that is then placed over a terrorist’s head and cinched tight around his neck with a web belt very quickly prompts a full explanation of the details of any planned attack."\* > **[A Nasty Business](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/01/a-nasty-business/302379/)** > > Gathering "good intelligence" against terrorists is an inherently brutish enterprise, involving methods a civics class might not condone. Should we care? And this one: \*"Sheikh Mohammed is considered the architect of two attempts on the World Trade Center: the one that failed, in 1993, and the one that succeeded so catastrophically, eight years later. He is also believed to have been behind the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and on the USS Cole two years later… [American] Intelligence and military officials would talk about Sheikh Mohammed’s state only indirectly, and conditionally. But by the time he arrived at a more permanent facility, he would already have been bone-tired, hungry, sore, uncomfortable, and afraid - if not for himself, then for his wife and children, who had been arrested either with him or some months before, depending on which story you believe. He would have been warned that lack of cooperation might mean being turned over to the more direct and brutal interrogators of some third nation. He would most likely have been locked naked in a cell with no trace of daylight. The space would be filled night and day with harsh light and noise, and would be so small that he would be unable to stand upright, to sit comfortably, or to recline fully. He would be kept awake, cold, and probably wet. If he managed to doze, he would be roughly awakened. He would be fed infrequently and irregularly, and then only with thin, tasteless meals. Sometimes days would go by between periods of questioning, sometimes only hours or minutes. The human mind craves routine, and can adjust to almost anything in the presence of it, so his jailers would take care that no semblance of routine developed. Questioning would be intense - sometimes loud and rough, sometimes quiet and friendly, with no apparent reason for either. He would be questioned sometimes by one person, sometimes by two or three. The session might last for days, with interrogators taking turns, or it might last only a few minutes. He would be asked the same questions again and again, and then suddenly be presented with something completely unexpected - a detail or a secret that he would be shocked to find they knew. He would be offered the opportunity to earn freedom or better treatment for his wife and children. Whenever he was helpful and the information he gave proved true, his harsh conditions would ease. If the information proved false, his treatment would worsen. On occasion he might be given a drug to elevate his mood prior to interrogation; marijuana, heroin, and sodium pentothal have been shown to overcome a reluctance to speak, and methamphetamine can unleash a torrent of talk in the stubbornest subjects, the very urgency of the chatter making a complex lie impossible to sustain. These drugs could be administered surreptitiously with food or drink, and given the bleakness of his existence, they might even offer a brief period of relief and pleasure, thereby creating a whole new category of longing - and new leverage for his interrogators."\* > **[The Dark Art of Interrogation](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/)** > > The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion So, are there circumstances where torture or coercion is necessary? And if it is, should it be kept “in the dark”, or administered with judicial or governmental supervision? ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/13 "2004-05-10T16:55:47Z")
More [Stuff](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3698965.stm) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/14 "2004-05-10T17:20:01Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > So, are there circumstances where torture or coercion is necessary? And if it is, should it be kept “in the dark”, or administered with judicial or governmental supervision? The situation of the Columbian colonel, who had to find out where a bomb was placed, would be such a situation, but note that the justification for the colonel’s behavior was that the three men were the bomb planters – if they had been innocent suspects, he would have been killing them for no reason, which I doubt would have bothered the colonel much, but which gives me pause for thought. Using nonlethal techniques that don’t do long-term harm to sweat info out of people who are known to be trying to kill Americans doesn’t strike me as particularly wrong, the problem is that it appears to be very hard to keep things safe and nonlethal – there’s a real tendency for things to spiral out of control. Also, dividing up the terrorists from the innocents is a hell of a problem, as the terrorists will proclaim their innocence as loudly as the innocent will. Abu Gharib demonstrates that things can easily go disastrously wrong, so I would imagine that you’d need the equivalent of a warrant, with full documentable authority as to who requested the interrogation, etc., before you could proceed with one, with well-established standards for what can and can’t be done, and strong penalties for doing the wrong things. Everybody behaves better when they know their ass is on the line. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/15 "2004-05-10T17:41:54Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > How did Husseins government treat our personnel in the same situation? Not only is this irrelevant to the topic at hand (when is torture really justified), but it’s just irrelevant period. This isn’t a game of tit for tat. It’s a question of standards. And a this scandal makes clear, the Geneva Convetion doesn’t just exist to protect the prisoners, it exists to protect the reputation of the captors as well. Unfortunately, the US has consistently opposed things like U.N. resolutions banning torture, and in the past few years have made very deliberate moves to roll back international oversight and application of the Geneva conventions. > [@](#): > > What did their guards do to our personnel? Some, like Lynch, were apparently treated pretty well. Others were treated horribly. It seemed to have varied a lot most likely because their captors weren’t necessarily regular soldiers but rather armed guys acting as small groups. > [@](#): > > I seem to remember footage shown on tv involving 4 live and wounded and a number of deceased soldiers. Hm, geneva convention prohibits filming and publically showing the questioning of prisoners, yet the prisoners were asked questions [granted what they showed was something like ‘how did you get here’ or ‘why are you here’ questions…but they are still questions.] If they blithly ignore one part of the Geneva Convention, what else are they doing that never made it into a news report? It’s unlikely the “soldiers” in that case had any clue about what the Geneva Con. says, as they didn’t look like regulars, and I doubt Hussien spent much time drilling his troops on the convention anyway. Remember though, this came at the same time the U.S. media was broadcasting photos of captured and humilated Iraqi troops. It certainly wasn’t the same situation, but you could certainly see how a bunch of random armed guys who had captured some Americans might have thought it to be. > [@](#): > > Chemical and biological warfare … we found solitoxin and nitrogen mustard detectors in the Brit’s compound were tripped, demonstrating the use against us. What are you talking about here? I’m honestly not clear on what you are reffering to. The British were going to use chemical warfare against us?? ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/16 "2004-05-10T17:51:07Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > OK, how about turnabout is fair play. > > Do we have documentation on how they treated our service personnel when they are captured that will stand up to verification _without any doubt_ > > Do the exact same things they did to our service personnel to theirs. When they whine, tell them they did it to us, we do it to them. > > Not that it would actualy stop them from whining about things, but maybe then the rest of the world and certain groups of americans would stop whining about us. A number of those “whining” about the rape murder conducted in our name are Americans. This makes it complicated to implement a “turnabout is fair play” scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/17 "2004-05-10T19:02:04Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Let me inject two real world scenarios for you: Well, you take a scenario where you already assume you have a terrorist, and you already consider it given that he has information about an impending catastrophe. Then of course it follows that prying out that info through torture, in that particular scenario, is an acceptable trade-off. I don’t think you can argue from such scenarios that torture is a good general policy. This is an invalid generalization. **Evil Captor** basically made the case. You don’t know somebody is a terrorist. And you can’t tell by torturing them. The following cite all but proves mathematically why torture is counter-productive [http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rajm/interro.htm](http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rajm/interro.htm) > [@](#): > > Specifically, for a confession to contribute to the evidence of guilt, the prosecution must prove that the probability that an innocent person would confess to the crime is undoubtedly less than the probability that a guilty person would confess under the same conditions. (…) If this is not shown to be the case, **then the confession is at best useless, and at worst may actually provide evidence of innocence of the accused.** Or course, torture is immoral, too… ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/18 "2004-05-10T19:14:08Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Let me inject two real world scenarios for you: Not central to my anti-torture argument, but I don’t find these two scenarios convincing at all. To find a ticking time bomb in a train station, I would feel much safer relying on - you guessed it - **evidence** from security cameras, witnesses etc. Even weaker is the WTC case. Consider the evidence. Known terrorists, known to be in the country and running around… taking rather suspicious flight lessons… these guys were just too easy to spot and were, in fact, spotted and warned about by FBI agents. It took a mighty amount of bureaucratic bungling to _not_ catch them. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/19 "2004-05-10T21:09:55Z")
I read your cite > **[The Dark Art of Interrogation](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/)** > > The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion I thought it was rather weak and partially self-contradictory. Also obviously prejudiced as evidenced by the final paragraphs, which don’t follow at all from the foregoing. However, I did find the one counter-example that does make me doubt: > [@](#): > > On September 27 of last year a Frankfurt law student kidnapped an eleven-year-old boy named Jakob von Metzler, whose smiling face appeared in a box alongside the story. The kidnapper had covered Jakob’s mouth and nose with duct tape, wrapped the boy in plastic, and hidden him in a wooded area near a lake. The police captured the suspect when he tried to pick up ransom money, but the suspect wouldn’t reveal where he had left the boy, who the police thought might still be alive. So the deputy police chief of Frankfurt, Wolfgang Daschner, told his subordinates to threaten the suspect with torture. According to the suspect, he was told that a “specialist” was being flown in who would “inflict pain on me of the sort I had never experienced.” The suspect promptly told the police where he’d hidden Jakob, who, sadly, was found dead. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317/20 "2004-05-13T22:25:19Z")
Update: In today’s issue of the New York Times there is an article about coercion/torture, and different methods currently in use against top al Qaeda detainees. A few quotes: > [@](#): > > The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials. > … > In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as “water boarding,” in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown. > … > Counterrorism officials say detainees have also been sent to third countries, where they are convinced that they might be executed, or tricked into believing they were being sent to such places. Some have been hooded, roughed up, soaked with water and deprived of food, light and medications. > … > The methods employed by the C.I.A. are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said. > … > So far, the agency has refused to grant any independent observer or human rights group access to the high-level detainees, who have been held in strict secrecy. Their whereabouts are such closely guarded secrets that one official said he had been told that Mr. Bush had informed the C.I.A. that he did not want to know where they were. > … > The secret detention system houses a group of 12 to 20 prisoners, government officials said, some under direct American control, others ostensibly under the supervision of foreign governments. > … > Some of the prisoners have never been identified by the government. Some may have only peripheral ties to Al Qaeda. One Middle Eastern man, who had been identified by intelligence officials as a money launderer for Mr. bin Laden, was captured in the United Arab Emirates. He traveled there when some of the emirates’ banks froze his accounts. When the U.A.E. government alerted the the C.I.A. that he was in the country, the man was arrested and subsequently disappeared into the secret detention program. > … > Regarding American anti-torture laws, one administration figure involved in discussions about the memorandums said: “The criminal statutes only apply to American officials. The question is how involved are the American officials.” > **[THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: DETAINEES; Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited In Top Qaeda...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/world/struggle-for-iraq-detainees-harsh-cia-methods-cited-top-qaeda-interrogations.html)** > > Central Intelligence Agency's use of coercive interrogation methods against some high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda produces concern inside agency about abuse; at least one agency employee reportedly has been disciplined for threatening... Comments? So far there hasn’t been much of a debate. Some posters claim torture and coercion is wrong, period. Others feel that this is justifiable if we can be sure that the suspect is guilty and has useful information that can save lives. I think this is a naive point of view. Tracking down a multi-national terrorist organization is about putting the pieces together: Meeting places, delivery methods, codes, communication, housing, etc. Such an approach means that _every_ operative, high-level or low-level, may have useful information. But should democratic nations make use of such methods? And how much transparency should there be? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-coercion-the-dark-art-of-interrogation/244317.md?page=2)