# Torture doesn't work **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656 "2016-03-30T17:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/281 "2016-04-19T03:10:12Z")
There’s a [poll thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=790826) now. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/282 "2016-04-19T05:38:07Z")
@Damuri Ashaji do you play the lottery? Do you consider spending a few thousand dollars a year on lottery tickets a wise investment? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/283 "2016-04-19T13:19:42Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > A lot more people are supporting the “can be effective” position this time around. > > Agree that it’s basically the same arguments. That’s why the shift in sentiment is so noticeable. Seems about the same to me. In fact it almost seems like the exact same people on both sides (most people don’t seem to give a crap). ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/284 "2016-04-19T13:23:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So if, through torture, a government finds out that terrorists are planning to detonate a bomb and kill hundreds - and the bomb’s current location is also told - aforementioned government should just pretend, “OK, we didn’t hear any of that?” > > Not evacuate anyone? > > Not try to disrupt the bombing? > > Not have bomb-sniffing dogs, security teams sweep anything? > > Not increase security? First of all you are saying that torture works. Something that some people don’t seem to be willing to admit. People who pretend torture doesn’t work are like Conservatives that pretend that Keynesian stimulus doesn’t work… until we really need it. Then they just look the other way and wait until LATER to criticize it and shut it down. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/285 "2016-04-19T13:35:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No one has made that argument. So every post that says Torture never works really means something else? OK, good. Are you finally admitting that torture does work on occasion? Its a pretty simple yes or no answer. Throw as many qualifiers you want into a parenthetical after the yes or no but do you think that torture can work? > [@](#): > > Next if you scroll down a bit on your own cite: > > "we likely foiled the LA Towers plot months before KSM was captured! " > > [http://www.slate.com/articles/news\_a...aterbored.html](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...aterbored.html) > > ““In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast.” These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush’s characterization of it as a “disrupted plot” was “ludicrous”—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn’t captured until March 2003. > How could Sheikh Mohammed’s water-boarded confession have prevented the Library Tower attack if the Bush administration “broke up” that attack during the previous year? It couldn’t, of course…But the plot was already a dead letter. If foiling the Library Tower plot was the reason to water-board Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, then that water-boarding was more than cruel and unjust. It was a waste of water.” > > In other words, the torture yielded nothing. You have a very different definition of nothing than the rest of the world. Or is this like the use of the word NEVER in the phrase “torture NEVER works” IOW, I don’t have as much as I thought=I have nothing. And torture doesn’t always work=Torture NEVER works From original cite: “This doesn’t necessarily obviate any of the other “high value information” but it would undermine the most impressive of the examples offered.” How do you think we captured KSM? We tortured Abu Zubaydah got information that eventually led to KSMs capture… ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/286 "2016-04-19T13:42:15Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Like if that excludes what they learned in WWII about torture, that was not forgotten or ignored, except by the Bush administration. The evidence does support what I have been saying all along. > > [WW 2 Interrogators Got Information Without Torture → Washingtons Blog](http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/08/wwii-interrogators-got-information.html) > > [Ruthless yet humane: Why Obama cited Churchill on torture.](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/05/ruthless_yet_humane.html) > > [Screening Torture: Media Representations of State Terror and Political ... - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=aRQmrz9xuagC&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=%22torture+has+a+well+known%22&source=bl&ots=P_xvJbGHiV&sig=9-MRcTzFSn5QPaNfuludh_IdUq0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4w8_HvZnMAhVX12MKHU8SAJ4Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22torture%20has%20a%20well%20known%22&f=false) The fact that the Nazis misused torture does not really say anything about whether or not torture NEVER works. [/quote] how is this information any more or less reliable than information acquired with bribery? > [@](#): > > As for the Japanese, there could be noting more contra-productive than getting a lie thanks to torture that helped then decide to surrender. > > [Interrogational torture - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_torture_for_interrogation) Annette Sisco thinks this? Who the fuck is Annette Sisco? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/287 "2016-04-19T13:46:11Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > @Damuri Ashaji do you play the lottery? Do you consider spending a few thousand dollars a year on lottery tickets a wise investment? Probably not. Do you try to hammer nails with screwdrivers? Would you throw away all your screwdrivers because they were not useful for hammering in nails? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/288 "2016-04-19T13:49:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Your losing lottery ticket again Monsieur: > > [http://mediamatters.org/research/2009/04/22/media-cite-doj-memo-to-claim-link-refuted-by-bu/149428](http://mediamatters.org/research/2009/04/22/media-cite-doj-memo-to-claim-link-refuted-by-bu/149428) Did we get information or not? Regardless of whether or not we already had the information KSM didn’t know we had the information and that we had already foiled the plot. So we got information as a result of torture. It just just information we already had in this case. > [@](#): > > Again, you are the one pushing bullshit by making it an absolute about “Torture works” I say torture works sometimes. You say torture NEVER works. I think the evidence is CLEARLY on my side. > [@](#): > > You claim that you are not doing that, but the discussion so far leads many to doubt that. As the original cite from the OP noted: > > [PolitiFact | Evidence backs Hillary Clinton claim that torture is counterproductive for counterterrorism](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/30/hillary-clinton/evidence-backs-hillary-clinton-claim-torture-count/) > > - The context there was that if torture worked as proponents expect much more good evidence would had surfaced thanks to the efforts of the Bush administration. What that showed was that what was reported before is the truth about torture, in the vast number of cases torture does not work, and it is really wishful thinking to expect that the ones torturing are not themselves affected by it into seeking justifications for their use, by using torture again. And the ones who have an instinctive aversion to torture might also be seeking bullshit argument for why torture shouldn’t be used. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/289 "2016-04-19T14:48:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Did we get information or not? Regardless of whether or not we already had the information KSM didn’t know we had the information and that we had already foiled the plot. So we got information as a result of torture. It just just information we already had in this case. Useless information nevertheless, and in more ways than one: > **[Media cite DOJ memo to claim link -- refuted by Bush timeline -- between KSM...](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/media-cite-doj-memo-claim-link-refuted-bush-timeline-between-ksm-waterboarding-thwarted)** > > Media figures have pointed to a 2005 Justice Department memo to claim that the use of waterboarding on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed caused him to reveal information intelligence officials used to foil a plot to attack the Library Tower in Los Angeles. But... > [@](#): > > in a February 9, 2006, White House press briefing that Noah cited, Bush homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend noted that Mohammed was not captured until more than a year after the individuals planning the Library Tower attacks had concluded that the plot had been “canceled.” Noah also noted that a May 23, 2007, Bush administration fact sheet stated that the administration “broke up” the Library Tower plot “in 2002” – before Mohammed was captured. > [@](#): > > Several American counterterrorism officials have reportedly expressed doubts that the Library Tower plot ever advanced beyond the initial planning stages and that it ever posed a serious threat, as Media Matters for America documented in February 2006. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I say torture works sometimes. You say torture NEVER works. I think the evidence is CLEARLY on my side. piffle, everyone can see that you only willfully ignore a lot off evidence to claim that absolute, and in the case you pointed last you were misled by the torture proponents with real bullshit. So stop straw maning what others are saying, I already granted that torture may work in few occasions but it is indeed counter productive. That you only pointed at cases that were already shown to be debunked as evidence many times in the past only demonstrates that you have a larger problem, that of not being able to identify good sources of information. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And the ones who have an instinctive aversion to torture might also be seeking bullshit argument for why torture shouldn’t be used. Everyone can see that you only avoided dealing with the argument, once again if you were correct more convictions would had been gained logically if torture worked as often as you continue to imply. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/290 "2016-04-19T16:45:52Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Then don’t bother appreciating the effort? Why not treat the information derived from torture the way courts treat evidence gained from torture? Don’t use it. Then why torture? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > After WWII, there was a small subset of actual scientific knowledge that the Nazis and Japanese gained through unethical human experimentation. The scientific community has deliberately forgotten and ignored that knowledge because of the source of the information. Should we do the same with information gained from torture? Its more than that. Nazi and Japanese experimentations represent something that already happened by the time the Allies took over. They were faced with the choice of using what’s already been obtained, or ignoring it. I would rank use of that information more moral than if someone tried to justify a current or future action, or a upholding a law that says we can torture. That’s something we have control over. Nobody’s starting a war like WWII just so they can run some experiments, Unit 731 was not a motivating factor in Japan jumping into the war. On the other hand, government officials have been trying to justify torture ever since the public found out about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA black sites. We can stop that right now, we need to stop it, and we need to ignore and destroy all the information we’ve gotten from torture so that future government have a harder time justifying its usage > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And some people would say that you should be wary of the truthfulness of claims made by people who are morally opposed to torture. They wouldn’t be the first people in history to lie in defense of a greater good or what they thought was moral. Luckily there’s no lying among the non-torturers, there are overwhelming studies saying it doesn’t work. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m getting it from the fact that its controversial. If it was as commonly held as you think it wouldn’t be any more controversial than murder, rape or child molestation. Controversial doesn’t mean its a commonly held belief. It could be a minority saying something incendiary. The people who don’t support torture vastly outnumber those who do. Not torturing is an American value > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And who exactly do you expect to volunteer to torture? If hundreds of lives depended on it, would you torture someone if it seemed like the most effective means of extracting information at the time? No? Then leave out the contingency that we can still use it sometime if we really need it. Just say you are willing to live with whatever consequences might arise from wholly rejecting torture and leave it at that. I say that because I’m sure Republican administrations will continue to do it, I don’t say it to try to have my cake and eat it too. I don’t care how many lives they think it would save, we should not torture and anyone responsible needs to go to jail for a long time. However, I am also human, I get emotional, I may personally want to torture a guy because I’m not a good person, but I will still say that I deserve jail for it. So too does anyone who tortures be thrown in jail, with no exceptions, to preserve that value. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/291 "2016-04-19T16:48:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > People who pretend torture doesn’t work are like Conservatives that pretend that Keynesian stimulus doesn’t work… until we really need it. Why would we need something that doesn’t work? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/292 "2016-04-19T17:03:05Z")
As someone who has worked in the field of interrogation I can tell you that it doesn’t work and it’s not worth trying. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/293 "2016-04-19T17:26:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So every post that says Torture never works really means something else? OK, good. > > Are you finally admitting that torture does work on occasion? Its a pretty simple yes or no answer. Throw as many qualifiers you want into a parenthetical after the yes or no but do you think that torture can work?. Again, no one is saying torture never works. How many times do we have to say this? The OP doesn’t say that either, we have corrected you on\* this time after time after time\*. :rolleyes: Yes, just like a blind squirrel finding a nut of a stopped clock being right twice a day, it occasionally works. But it is not efficient, and not only is it not productive, it is _counter productive_. It wastes more resources than it brings in useful Intel. Even in the few times it did work, there’s nothing that shows that the intel would not have been gotten anyway, in a less evil and more moral way. So, **Torture doesn’t work** as (just like the very first post in this thread says) …\* because it is extremely inefficient and, in many ways, counterproductive. \* Would you say a stopped clock “works” as it was right twice a day?:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/294 "2016-04-19T17:32:07Z")
Whether torture “works” or not depends heavily on individual perspective. From the perspective of the torturer, it may be inefficient, generate false positives, or be less effective than other means. _But from the perspective of the tortured, or those who may be jeopardized by a fellow agent/spy being tortured, it most certainly works._ ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/295 "2016-04-19T17:32:31Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The fact that the Nazis misused torture does not really say anything about whether or not torture NEVER works. > > how is this information any more or less reliable than information acquired with bribery? As pointed before, torture does not lead to willful transactions were the subjects say whatever is needed to stop the torture. Most informants (the ones that the Nazis overwhelmingly used to deal with resistance forces) did not accepted bribes, they had the same ideology as the fascists, but accepting bribes was not beneath many of them. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Annette Sisco thinks this? Who the fuck is Annette Sisco? Killing the messenger is, again, illogical. She is a writer/reporter that pointed at Lieutenant Colonel Jerome T. Hagen and his book (1996). _War in the Pacific_, Chapter 25 “The Lie of Marcus McDilda” by Hawaii Pacific University. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/296 "2016-04-19T18:07:42Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > So stop straw maning what others are saying, I already granted that torture may work in few occasions OK then, we are done. Debate over. I win. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/297 "2016-04-19T18:24:34Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > OK then, we are done. Debate over. I win. Hey, that broken clock just happens to be showing the same time as it really is! That clock thus is a great way to tell time!:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/298 "2016-04-19T18:25:16Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Then why torture? Exactly. If you were never allowed to use the information you gathered from torture, you would remove all legitimate incentives to use torture. That is the purpose behind an exclusionary rule. > [@](#): > > Its more than that. Nazi and Japanese experimentations represent something that already happened by the time the Allies took over. They were faced with the choice of using what’s already been obtained, or ignoring it. I would rank use of that information more moral than if someone tried to justify a current or future action, or a upholding a law that says we can torture. That’s something we have control over. Nobody’s starting a war like WWII just so they can run some experiments, Unit 731 was not a motivating factor in Japan jumping into the war. On the other hand, government officials have been trying to justify torture ever since the public found out about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA black sites. We can stop that right now, we need to stop it, and we need to ignore and destroy all the information we’ve gotten from torture so that future government have a harder time justifying its usage So you agree with the exclusionary rule, right? lets get rid of any useful information we have gotten from torture even if it would save lives because torture is abhorrent enough that the cost to society of using torture is to high a price to pay for those handful of lives. > [@](#): > > Luckily there’s no lying among the non-torturers, there are overwhelming studies saying it doesn’t work. Other than the senate report (which is not a study), what are you talking about? I mean if you want to talk about scientific studies, there are studies that have been done on how long people can endure torture before divulging information (SERE training studies) and there are innumerable accounts of when torture has produced favorable results but I am not aware of a scientific study that says that these innumerable accounts are all fiction. > [@](#): > > Controversial doesn’t mean its a commonly held belief. It could be a minority saying something incendiary. The people who don’t support torture vastly outnumber those who do. Not torturing is an American value > **[Poll: Most Americans back torture of ‘terror’ suspects](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/3/30/poll-most-americans-back-torture-of-terror-suspects)** > > Poll reflects an American public on edge after California massacre and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months. Maybe the al Jazeera pollsters are secretly in on the torture conspiracy. > [@](#): > > I say that because I’m sure Republican administrations will continue to do it, I don’t say it to try to have my cake and eat it too. I don’t care how many lives they think it would save, we should not torture and anyone responsible needs to go to jail for a long time. However, I am also human, I get emotional, I may personally want to torture a guy because I’m not a good person, but I will still say that I deserve jail for it. So too does anyone who tortures be thrown in jail, with no exceptions, to preserve that value. You realize that our administration has been torturing people (at least via proxy) for the last 8 years with a Democrat in the white house, right? I mean, what do you think happens when we deliver high value prisoners to our allies like the Kurds or Pakistanis or any number of other folks (who conveniently have military contractors helping them out). We as a nation have probably been torturing spies since at least the cold war with little difference between Republican and Democratic administrations. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/299 "2016-04-19T18:27:06Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Why would we need something that doesn’t work? Because you are only pretending it doesn’t work because it offends your political or other sensibilities. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/300 "2016-04-19T18:28:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Would you say a stopped clock “works” as it was right twice a day?:rolleyes: Do you think torture works by accident? that the prisoner cobbles together a group of random words and they just happen to form sentences that just happens to coincide with useful information? No? Then your analogy is stupid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656.md?page=16)