# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 32
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/621 "2016-07-07T13:34:09Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Cohersive and harsh, but not what was applied in reverse SERE Irrelevant. I was not addressing SERE specifically. > [@](#): > > nor you did reply here to Mr. Nashiri’s case. It seemed obvious that it was irrelevant, as described above. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/622 "2016-07-07T13:37:20Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Irrelevant. I was not addressing SERE specifically. > > It seemed obvious that it was irrelevant, as described above. As pointed before it was not unique, as the CIA also reported, which led to the overall conclusion by the ARMY, CIA and the USA government that valuable information was indeed available by other means. And that torture made a mess of all othr efforts and it was not reliable either. Just as they had before the Bush administration came along. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/623 "2016-07-07T13:39:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As pointed before it was not unique, as the CIA also reported, which led to the coverall conclusion that valuable information was indeed available by other means. That’s exactly what’s in dispute. Saying it “led to the overall conclusion” just means “led to myself and people who agree with me concluding that …”, which is pointless in a discussion with people who don’t agree with you. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/624 "2016-07-07T13:42:13Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > That’s exactly what’s in dispute. > > Saying it “led to the overall conclusion” just means “led to myself and people who agree with me concluding that …”, which is pointless in a discussion with people who don’t agree with you. Not complete yet, was editing to say that: > [@GIGObuster](#): > > As pointed before it was not unique, \*\*as the CIA also reported, which led to the overall conclusion by the ARMY, CIA and the USA government that valuable information was indeed available by other means. And that torture made a mess of all other efforts and it was not reliable either. \*\*Just as they had before the Bush administration came along. And that is the people that counts in the end. The whole history is indeed a lesson that was gained after hundreds of years that was dismissed during the Bush the lesser administration that was found again after the debacle. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/625 "2016-07-07T13:44:31Z")
OK, but what’s your source for that claim? If you have one you’ve been remarkably coy about sharing it until now … ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/626 "2016-07-07T14:03:50Z")
Some will complain about the source, but one should look at the articles they link to, and the ones writing the article. > **[There is no debate about torture](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/12/31/there-is-no-debate-about-torture/?utm=from_old_mobile)** > > Nobody who matters actually says it works. > [@](#): > > The Senate Intelligence Committee’s scathing torture report not only described the brutality of the CIA’s interrogation methods, but also demonstrated their ineffectiveness. Led by ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, former Bush administration officials have rushed to the airwaves to defend the CIA. > > “I would do it again in a minute,” Cheney said on NBC’s Meet the Press, claiming that Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) produced “actionable intelligence that kept us safe from attacks”. > > Cheney & Co may not win the debate, but they have succeeded in muddying the waters. That is unfortunate because, beneath their bombastic caricatures of the torture programme, there’s more agreement than first appears among people who actually count. > > Aside from former officials trying to save their reputations, it isn’t one camp saying torture didn’t “work” and one saying it did. Rather, it’s one camp saying it didn’t, and the other saying “we have no idea but did it anyway”. > > On several key points, the CIA is closer in substance to the Senate report than to its loudest defenders. > > ‘Unprepared’ for torture > > The Senate report found that the CIA was “unprepared” to operate a detention and interrogation system. The Agency’s written response to the report says; “We fully agree” - the CIA had “no cadre of trained and experienced interrogators, little experience handling and moving prisoners, and no core competency in prison management. […] The Agency had too few analysts and linguists with the expertise required to support [a detention] programme”. > > In other words, there is no dispute that the programme was started and run on the fly. > The Listening Post - Covering the CIA torture report > > A critical finding of the Senate report was that torturing detainees did not yield otherwise unobtainable actionable intelligence. CIA director, John O Brennan, admitted that the agency “has not concluded that it was the use of EITs that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees”. > > So while the CIA still maintains that it gained valuable intelligence from detainees, it is not saying the abusive methods produced it. > > The Senate report also describes how the CIA sought out two psychiatrists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, to construct the torture programme instead of actual experienced interrogators, on the assumption that long-established humane and lawful interrogation methods wouldn’t work. > > … > > Jonathan Hafetz is Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law and the author, most recently, of Habeas Corpus after 9/11: Confronting America’s New Global Detention System. As pointed before many still have to cover their butts, but it is clear that the CIA did not use the torture that was the reason for the SERE training. Had to be told to do it by Cheney and henchmen. As for the ARMY I already linked several times to the SERE experts that had also people from the ARMY involved telling us also that besides not being SERE but torture what was used, that torture virtually does not work to gain valid information. Just as the U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogations had told and foretold before. As for the USA government, besides the Senate torture report and thanks to it, congress also passed laws banning it. > **[Torture is illegal, Mr. Trump - MinnPost](https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2016/07/torture-illegal-mr-trump/)** > > Donald Trump and his supporters need to receive a loud, clear and consistent message. There are no loopholes: Torture is illegal under both international and U.S. laws.  ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/627 "2016-07-07T14:13:47Z")
The only part of all this which is relevant to the discussion is the quote from Brennan, which has already been addressed. One more time: the CIA acknowledged that their assumption that the information they obtained through torture could not have been obtained through other means was speculation, and in that sense “_has not concluded that it was the use of EITs that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees_”. But “not concluded that it was” is not the same thing as “concluded that it wasn’t”, as you’re treating it. Anyway, that’s probably it for me here. In the event that you post something relevant I might respond, but I am done with responding to logical errors and non sequitors. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/628 "2016-07-07T14:27:33Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The only part of all this which is relevant to the discussion is the quote from Brennan, which has already been addressed. One more time: the CIA acknowledged that their assumption that the information they obtained through torture could not have been obtained through other means was speculation, and in that sense “_has not concluded that it was the use of EITs that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees_”. But “not concluded that it was” is not the same thing as “concluded that it wasn’t”, as you’re treating it. > > Anyway, that’s probably it for me here. In the event that you post something relevant I might respond, but I am done with responding to logical errors and non sequitors. Seems to me that your logic is flawed indeed. In any case the issue is that the CIA was told to torture when that was not the best way to gain intelligence. And the ARMY also had not found that torture was good for intelligence either. [http://www.stripes.com/news/torture-why-the-uniformed-military-balked-at-enhanced-interrogation-1.319634](http://www.stripes.com/news/torture-why-the-uniformed-military-balked-at-enhanced-interrogation-1.319634) > [@](#): > > Doubts about the effectiveness of torture in obtaining reliable information were raised early on by military lawyers, Romig said. In a 2003 memo, he wrote that information obtained under torture “may be of questionable practical value,” later citing the experience of U.S. servicemembers captured in Korea and Vietnam who were tortured into making false confessions for propaganda purposes. > > Another concern among military lawyers was that changing the rules for interrogation of ‘high value’ detainees at Guantanamo might lead to abuses of lesser prisoners in other conflict zones — a fear that appeared to have been borne out in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, where 11 U.S. soldiers, most of them enlisted, were later convicted of various offenses stemming from prisoner abuse. > > “While the detainees’ status as an unlawful belligerent may not entitle them to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, that is a legal distinction that may be lost on the members of the armed forces,” wrote Rives, who is now retired from the military. He warned that approving exceptional interrogation techniques “may be seen as giving official approval and legal sanction” to methods which the U.S. armed services “have heretofore been trained are unlawful.” > > Romig believes that the well-documented abuse of prisoners in Iraq at the hands of American troops stemmed from confusion in the lower ranks about what was legal and what was not. > > “Once they let the cat out of the bag that the rules were beginning to slip (at Guantanamo), then people learned of that — learned of it through rumor, learned of it through people who had been assigned to Guantanamo and then came to Iraq. And it caused a lack of respect for the rules, a lack of respect for the law, and … it really made it much more chaotic and it loosened the discipline that needs to be in place for interrogators,” he said in the interview. > > Even before the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted, top military lawyers had warned that revelations of American torture could backfire and undermine support for the war. > > “Should any information concerning the exceptional techniques become public, it … could have a negative impact on international, and perhaps domestic, support for the war on terrorism. It could likewise have a negative impact on public perception of the U.S. military in general,” Rives wrote in the February 2003 memo. > [@](#): > > Romig is concerned that at some point in the future, civilian leaders might once again authorize torture if faced with similar grave threats. > > “There are a lot of people out there — most of them uninformed about the military, uninformed about interrogation — who think … that anything is justified in defense of the country,” he said. > > He said if it were up to the military, “We’ll go to extreme ends to defend the country, but we’re not going to put ourselves down in the gutter with the people we’re fighting to do that.” ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/629 "2016-07-07T15:59:47Z")
This is my last post in this thread because its pretty clear that the “torture simply doesn’t work” side of the argument has lost. I just wanted to clear up that I didn’t mean to offend anyone by saying “p\_ssy a\_s Navy SEAL” I only used this phrase because several people rebutt the significance of the SERE training results because “its only training” or something along those lines, implying that the participants are just giving up because its not really important enough to try to actually resist torture in SERE training. You can argue that the conditions of SERE training are artificial and so far removed from anything that could possibly happen in the field that there is nothing useful to be learned from the 100% success rate torture achieves in SERE training (I think most people would say that we still see situations close enough often enough that we can’t dismiss the SERE training results), but I think that any attempt to say that these guys are not taking their training seriously enough to try their best pretty much all the time needs to be reminded these guys are mentally tough and dedicated. I think all the arguments have been laid out and, I don’t think there are any minds that are susceptible to change that have not already been changed. So enjoy beating your heads on each other’s brick walls. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/630 "2016-07-07T16:25:40Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > This is my last post in this thread because its pretty clear that the “torture simply doesn’t work” side of the argument has lost. That is bullshit. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/631 "2016-07-07T16:27:28Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I only used this phrase because several people rebutt the significance of the SERE training results because “its only training” or something along those lines, implying that the participants are just giving up because its not really important enough to try to actually resist torture in SERE training. Out of context still when real life and intelligence gathering is concerned. And it is not just me saying this but experts in SERE and people that had direct knowledge of SERE and the torturing going on. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/632 "2016-07-07T16:33:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is bullshit. To expand, it is a curious claim to victory made by the poster when the opposite argument was accepted by the USA government, NAVY, ARMY and most of the developed countries in the world. They knew before and found recently again that “Torture does not work”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656.md?page=31)