Torture doesn't work

[Czarcasm]

What is the source of your information, Damuri Ajashi?

[GIGObuster]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Not only was it unclear to me then, but it remains unclear to me now, even after Tom’s subsequent post. (Is referring to SEALs as “pussy ass” itself what he’s calling “attacking an argument that has not been made, using a sarcastic comment for no purpose other than trolling the thread”, or were the latter in reference to something else? And if so, what?)

Do you have a legitimate source for these claims?

I’ve seen a lot of claims that are superficially similar but fundamentally less reaching. Specifically, that anything useful obtained by torture could have been obtained without it. Which I’ve never taken very seriously, since it seems like a highly speculative claim, and one generally advanced by people who oppose torture on other grounds. What you’re claiming here is that anything useful obtained by torture actually was “readily available from non-torture sources”, which is a much more far reaching claim. So I’m curious as to your source for this claim.

Besides using tools like logic under game theory the evidence did point to the claims that the CIA made to the efectivenes of torture to be wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-torture-report-shows-cia-infighting-over-interrogation-program.html?action=click&contentCollection=World&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia

The report said the agency had evidently forgotten its own conclusion, sent to Congress in 1989, that “inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers.” The Democratic Senate staff members who studied the post-Sept. 11 program came up with an identical assessment: that waterboarding, wall-slamming, nudity, cold and other ill treatment produced little information of value in preventing terrorism.

**The report spends little time condemning torture on moral or legal grounds. Instead, it addresses mainly a practical question: Did torture accomplish anything of value? Looking at case after case, the report answers with an unqualified no.

In fact, it says, “C.I.A. officers regularly called into question whether the C.I.A.'s enhanced interrogation techniques were effective, assessing that the use of the techniques failed to elicit detainee cooperation or produce accurate intelligence.”** Still, higher-ups ordered that the methods be continued and told Congress, the White House and journalists that they were having great success.

Just as striking as that central finding is the detailed account of C.I.A. mismanagement. Both factions in the fight over interrogations were led by people with histories that might have been expected to disqualify them.

The chief of interrogations, who is not named in the report, was given the job in fall 2002 even though the agency’s inspector general had urged that he be “orally admonished for inappropriate use of interrogation techniques” in a training program in Latin America in the 1980s.

And Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen, identified by the pseudonyms Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar in the report, had not conducted a single real interrogation. They had helped run a Cold War-era training program for the Air Force in which personnel were given a taste of the harsh treatment they might face if captured by Communist enemies. The program — called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape — had never been intended for use in American interrogations, and involved methods that had produced false confessions when used on American airmen held by the Chinese in the Korean War.

The program allowed the psychologists to assess their own work — they gave it excellent grades — and to charge a daily rate of $1,800 each, four times the pay of other interrogators, to waterboard detainees. Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen later started a company that took over the C.I.A. program from 2005 until it was closed in 2009. The C.I.A. paid it $81 million, plus $1 million to protect the company from legal liability.

During the program’s later years, after a damning report in 2004 by the C.I.A.'s inspector general, much of the agency’s effort appears to have gone into public relations to counter dismal news coverage. In 2007, Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “all of those involved in the questioning of detainees are carefully chosen and screened for demonstrated professional judgment and maturity.”

In fact, the Senate report concludes, no such vetting took place. The interrogation teams included people with “notable derogatory information” in their records, including one with “workplace anger management issues” and another who “had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.”

**Former C.I.A. officials have denounced the Senate review as inaccurate and unfair, and plan to mount a vigorous pushback. On the question of personnel vetting, however, as on many other issues, the most critical voices in the Senate report are those of agency officers who were offended by what they saw.

“I am concerned at what appears to be a lack of resolve at headquarters to deploy to the field the brightest and most qualified officers,” wrote a C.I.A. officer running one of the secret prisons in 2005. “More than a few are basically incompetent.”

He added: “We see no evidence that thought is being given to deploying an ‘A team.’ The result, quite naturally, is the production of mediocre or, I dare say, useless intelligence.”**

[GIGObuster]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Like the ones in the CIA? Or the ones from French Algeria?

So your experts are REAL experts and my experts are political appointees?

French Algeria. Torture used to find location of resistance members. Algerian resistance members found.

Russian castration and dismemberment of Hezbollah Family members. Worked to secure the release of Russian prisoners.

Torture is not a silver bullet that works in all circumstances but in the situations where it is appropriate, it can be useful.

I looked at those, suffice to say, just like your Russian castration case, you are not just relying on anecdotes, but urban rumors.

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=36643

It is more sad to notice that there was a link made to that already in this thread.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@GIGObuster

Besides using tools like logic under game theory the evidence did point to the claims that the CIA made to the efectivenes of torture to be wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-torture-report-shows-cia-infighting-over-interrogation-program.html?action=click&contentCollection=World&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia

None of what you quoted has the slightest connection to the specific question I directed to Tom.

Which is part of the problem with these discussions. Some people can’t get past the notion that “torture is bad” is not logically an all purpose response to any and all questions about the matter.

[GIGObuster]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

None of what you quoted has the slightest connection to the specific question I directed to Tom.

Which is part of the problem with these discussions. Some people can’t get past the notion that “torture is bad” is not logically an all purpose response to any and all questions about the matter.

Actually since " waterboarding, wall-slamming, nudity, cold and other ill treatment produced little information of value in preventing terrorism." it follows logically that other ways to get information are more effective indeed.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Czarcasm

What is the source of your information, Damuri Ajashi?

http://articles.philly.com/1988-02-26/news/26242928_1_islamic-liberation-organization-soviets-hezbollah

Torture during the Algerian War

While some of the French Generals involved NOW claim that they could have gotten he same results without resorting to torture, the torture did result in the capture (and frequently the extrajudicial killing) of Algerian terrorists.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@GIGObuster

Actually since " waterboarding, wall-slamming, nudity, cold and other ill treatment produced little information of value in preventing terrorism." it follows logically that other ways to get information are more effective indeed.

That’s at best a circular argument. (But probably not even worth that.)

[GIGObuster]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

That’s at best a circular argument. (But probably not even worth that.)

Not really, if you were correct then we would see the opposite, as in torture being as effective as it was advertised by the CIA.

[GIGObuster]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

Torture during the Algerian War - Wikipedia

While some of the French Generals involved NOW claim that they could have gotten he same results without resorting to torture, the torture did result in the capture (and frequently the extrajudicial killing) of Algerian terrorists.

Not really as clear, the source of that is not reporting something that was seen but hearsay, and then:

Alpha Group

However, the veracity of this story has been brought into question. Another version says that the release of the Soviet hostages was the result of extensive diplomatic negotiations with the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who appealed to King Hussein of Jordan, and the leaders of Libya and Iran, to use their influence on the kidnappers.[21]

As for the French during the Algerian war, I also pointed at the condemnation and reportedly unnecessary use of torture that it is also in that last article/link in the quoted post.

[Kobal2]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Pardon my French but that’s not fucking clear from your mod note. It also serves a useful purpose in a debate where your side of the argument is basically saying that SERE training doesn’t really count (at least in part) because those Navy SEALS are half assing it.

That was not what I was implying. Well, ok, point the fifth was jokey. The rest are perfectly logical arguments why somebody, anybody, even a paragon of masculinity with a cock this big, would not be particularly motivated to prolong the exercise, certainly not to the point they would in a real, dangerous, uncertain situation. And I should have added “and you’re not putting any of your battle brothers or your loved ones in any danger should you cave” to point 4, which would be the case for a terrorist.
Same concept as a fire drill - you ever see people lose their shit during a fire drill they know is a drill ? Punch each other out of the way, trample folks to death ? No. Because they know it’s not real. But it happens commonly during *real *fires, when people are *really *afraid.

Besides, from what I’m given to understand the point of the SERE exercise is not for the participant to *resist *the torture. The point is simply for the trainee to experience it, so they know what to expect including the fact that they’re going to break at some point. The scenario doesn’t even involve withholding information at all, simply to spout what the torturer tells you to.

[QUOTE=Damuri Ajashi]
While some of the French Generals involved NOW claim that they could have gotten he same results without resorting to torture, the torture did result in the capture (and frequently the extrajudicial killing) of Algerian terrorists.
[/QUOTE]

Also the extrajudicial killing of plenty of innocents. Which was sort of the point.

And do I need to remind people that we *lost *that war, by the way ? Not the least because the brutal tactics of the OAS and regular army did more to unite Algerians against us and sap support for the war back home than 120 years of colonial rule ever did ?

[Kobal2]

Oh, and while it was sometimes used to elicit information, torture in the Algerian war was mostly used for punishment and intimidation anyway.

[tomndebb]

@Damuri_Ajashi

So your experts are REAL experts and my experts are political appointees?

You cited the CIA Director and I noted his position. I made no broad claim that all your sources were political appointees.

@Damuri_Ajashi

French Algeria. Torture used to find location of resistance members. Algerian resistance members found.

Russian castration and dismemberment of Hezbollah Family members. Worked to secure the release of Russian prisoners.

What is the success ratio of Agerian torture? How many innocent people were “found” vs how many terrorists were not. Are you claiming that every Algerian terrorist was found as the result of torture? Or are you using the ass-covering claims of the French that it was successful based on having a few hits?

And then you appeal to Russian terrorism, substituting it for torture? Attacking family members to get others to surrender does not fall into any legitimate discussion of torture. Those tortured were not the ones who provided the intelligence.

You are really reaching.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Torture is not a silver bullet that works in all circumstances but in the situations where it is appropriate, it can be useful.

Torture occasionally provides information, but its failures outweigh its successes.

[tomndebb]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I’ve seen a lot of claims that are superficially similar but fundamentally less reaching. Specifically, that anything useful obtained by torture could have been obtained without it. Which I’ve never taken very seriously, since it seems like a highly speculative claim, and one generally advanced by people who oppose torture on other grounds. What you’re claiming here is that anything useful obtained by torture actually was “readily available from non-torture sources”, which is a much more far reaching claim. So I’m curious as to your source for this claim.

The source is following multiple stories over multiple years. You and Gigo have traded quotes on that issue, already. However, that is a sidelight issue that is not at the core of my argument. Even if the occasional act of torture happened to have provided some information, there was so much false information gathered by torture that the few claims for success are overshadowed by the general rate of failure.

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Here’s an Op-Ed in the NYT from an opponent of torture, arguing that the Senate Report on the CIA’s torture program was misleading.
. . .
While I’m at it, it seems pretty clear from the last quote here that the Senate report did not claim that all information acquired from this program actually was available to be obtained some other way, as Tom claimed here, because if that were the case then it wouldn’t be a matter of things being “sincerely believed but were also inherently speculative”.

Sorry. Confirmation bias is not a legitimate excuse. “Sincerely believing” that one’s stupid actions have been successful is pretty much the routine story of most business failures in the U.S.
The CIA did not claim that the beliefs were speculative, the Senate report, (being criticized for not condemning Bush and Cheney) made that claim.

I am willing to acknowledge that there may have been a random occasion where torture produced good intel, (not that we have actually seen evidence of that claim, just unsubstantiated handwaving by those defending the practice), but the amount of bad intel that was obtained and misused far outweighs the occasional lucky hit.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@tomndebb

The source is following multiple stories over multiple years. You and Gigo have traded quotes on that issue, already.

I’ve not exchanged quotes on the subject with GICO or anyone else. If you think anyone has put forth any quote that backs this up, please specify what this was.

I believe you are mistaken at best about this claim. The forthright thing for you to do would be to attempt to back it up.

Sorry. Confirmation bias is not a legitimate excuse. “Sincerely believing” that one’s stupid actions have been successful is pretty much the routine story of most business failures in the U.S.
The CIA did not claim that the beliefs were speculative, the Senate report, (being criticized for not condemning Bush and Cheney) made that claim.

You appear to have misunderstood both the NYT article and the point I was making with it.

The CIA claimed the beliefs were speculative. Reread the article, more carefully this time. They had said that the info they got from torture could not have been otherwise acquired, and in their mea culpa, they acknowledged that this belief was speculative (since they were necessarily speculating about what might have been possibly acquired otherwise).

My point with this was that - regardless of whether it was the CIA or the Senate report claiming this was speculation - if the information acquired via torture would have been shown to have been available via other means, then the claim that it was otherwise unavailable would not have been speculation, it would have been false. Since the CIA (or Senate report, if you prefer) characterized it as speculation, your claim that the info was known to be otherwise available is apparently false.

[GIGObuster]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I’ve not exchanged quotes on the subject with GICO or anyone else. If you think anyone has put forth any quote that backs this up, please specify what this was.

I believe you are mistaken at best about this claim. The forthright thing for you to do would be to attempt to back it up.

You appear to have misunderstood both the NYT article and the point I was making with it.

The CIA claimed the beliefs were speculative. Reread the article, more carefully this time. They had said that the info they got from torture could not have been otherwise acquired, and in their mea culpa, they acknowledged that this belief was speculative (since they were necessarily speculating about what might have been possibly acquired otherwise).

My point with this was that - regardless of whether it was the CIA or the Senate report claiming this was speculation - if the information acquired via torture would have been shown to have been available via other means, then the claim that it was otherwise unavailable would not have been speculation, it would have been false. Since the CIA (or Senate report, if you prefer) characterized it as speculation, your claim that the info was known to be otherwise available is apparently false.

I do not think this was speculation: (and this was in the article I cited: )

The protest from the chief of interrogations came amid weeks of torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a leading suspect in the bombing of two American embassies and a Navy ship. C.I.A. personnel working on the secret program had split into two camps. On one side were the chief of interrogations and nearly all of the personnel who had been questioning Mr. Nashiri. After two months of harsh questioning, the chief wrote, they believed that the prisoner had “been mainly truthful and is not withholding significant information.”

On the other side were James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two former military psychologists who had advised the agency to use waterboarding and other coercive methods. With the support of C.I.A. headquarters, they insisted that Mr. Nashiri and other prisoners were still withholding crucial information, and that the application of sufficient pain and disorientation would eventually force them to disclose it. They thought the other faction was “running a ‘sissified’ interrogation program,” the report says.

The cite BTW also has links that explain what the ones looking at what the CIA, and the CIA itself did conclude about information being abailable with no torture needed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/12psychs.html

In late July 2002, Dr. Jessen joined his partner in Thailand. On Aug. 1, the Justice Department completed a formal legal opinion authorizing the SERE methods, and the psychologists turned up the pressure. Over about two weeks, Mr. Zubaydah was confined in a box, slammed into the wall and waterboarded 83 times.

The brutal treatment stopped only after Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen themselves decided that Mr. Zubaydah had no more information to give up. Higher-ups from headquarters arrived and watched one more waterboarding before agreeing that the treatment could stop, according to a Justice Department legal opinion.

Lucrative Work
**
The Zubaydah case gave reason to question the Mitchell-Jessen plan: the prisoner had given up his most valuable information without coercion.**

But top C.I.A. officials made no changes, and the methods would be used on at least 27 more prisoners, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

[tomndebb]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I’ve not exchanged quotes on the subject with GICO or anyone else. If you think anyone has put forth any quote that backs this up, please specify what this was.

Right. Posts 600 and 602 never happened.

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I believe you are mistaken at best about this claim. The forthright thing for you to do would be to attempt to back it up.

No. The forthright thing would be to acknowledge, as I did, that there might have been a couple of exceptions to my claim. Since no one has provided evidence that anything of value was actually obtained through torture, this is nothing but sidebar nitpicking.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@tomndebb

Right. Posts 600 and 602 never happened.

Post 600 and 602 happened. As did posts 13, 145, 279, 406 and any number of other posts one could select at random. What all these posts have in common is that not one of them have any connection to the claim that you made and which I challenged you on.

Again, your claim in post 595 was that “Even if, in a few cases, the torture resulted in accurate information, that information was already available from non-torture sources” (emphasis added). I challenged this claim (in post 600), and observed that I’ve only seen the claim that such information might have been available from non-torture sources. Nothing GICO said addressed this, nor have you yourself deigned to back up your claim.

Truth is it’s not such a big deal, at this point. I was a bit intrigued by your claim, never having seen it made before, and while somewhat skeptical I wondered if perhaps you had some source for it. At this point it’s pretty clear that you do not, and that it’s just your distorted version of stuff you’ve read. Whether you acknowledge that or not is your call, but my query has been resolved to my satisfaction.

The forthright thing would be to acknowledge, as I did, that there might have been a couple of exceptions to my claim. Since no one has provided evidence that anything of value was actually obtained through torture, this is nothing but sidebar nitpicking.

You did not acknowledge any exceptions to the specific claim quoted above.

Your second sentence here follows the circular logic approach that Gico put forth earlier. All sides agree that things of value were obtained through torture. No one familiar with the issues seriously disputes this. The counter-claim is not that nothing of value was obtained through torture, but that all such information could have been obtained through other means. Therefore the question of whether this information is definitively known to have been available through other means (as you claimed) or just thought to be possibly available through other means (the truth) is highly relevant.

You can’t claim the question of how definitively one can say the information was available through other means is irrelevant because the information wasn’t of value, since the entire notion that torture produced nothing of value itself rests on the notion that the information was available through other means.

[GIGObuster]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Your second sentence here follows the circular logic approach that Gico put forth earlier. All sides agree that things of value were obtained through torture. No one familiar with the issues seriously disputes this. The counter-claim is not that nothing of value was obtained through torture, but that all such information could have been obtained through other means. Therefore the question of whether this information is definitively known to have been available through other means (as you claimed) or just thought to be possibly available through other means (the truth) is highly relevant.

You can’t claim the question of how definitively one can say the information was available through other means is irrelevant because the information wasn’t of value, since the entire notion that torture produced nothing of value itself rests on the notion that the information was available through other means.

I guess it means that post #615 did not happen either. Again, information **of value **was available with no torture made or before torture was used.

And the name is GIGObuster not Gico. I know we all make mistakes of missing names, (but not twice like you) but be more careful about missing information. (like three times and from previous cites)

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@GIGObuster

I guess it means that post #615 did not happen either. Again, information **of value **was available with no torture made or before torture was used.

What in the world do you think you’ve shown from post 615 that relates to the specific claim being made?

At most, you’ve shown that people have claimed that in two specific instances, there was dispute over one of them and in the other case the guy (Zubaydah) gave his info without torture. That’s not anything remotely like a general claim that all information obtained though torture was “readily available” through other sources.

Which is itself besides for the fact that, per the NYT article I quoted in post 600, “Mr. Zubaydah had been subjected to five days of sleep deprivation, a highly coercive and painful tactic, when the F.B.I. interrogated him”. Somehow that went completely over your head, to the point where you made a big deal of bolding the line about Zubaydah in post 615, with no acknowledgment of the earlier point.

Again, your general approach - in common with many many others who share your viewpoint - has been to just treat any and all criticism of torture as being catch-all refutations of any points being made, to the point where it’s there’s not much value in engaging in such discussions. I just joined here to query Tom about a specific claim he made, but once it’s become apparent that it was just more bogus jive, I don’t know that I intend to continue.

And the name is GIGObuster not GICO. I know we all make mistakes of missing names, but be more careful about missing information.

It’s common to shorten long names and some people mind and some people don’t. In this case, Tom referred to you as “Gigo” and you didn’t object, so I figured you were OK with it. My apologies.

[GIGObuster]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

What in the world do you think you’ve shown from post 615 that relates to the specific claim being made?

At most, you’ve shown that people have claimed that in two specific instances, there was dispute over one of them and in the other case the guy (Zubaydah) gave his info without torture. That’s not anything remotely like a general claim that all information obtained though torture was “readily available” through other sources.

Which is itself besides for the fact that, per the NYT article I quoted in post 600, “Mr. Zubaydah had been subjected to five days of sleep deprivation, a highly coercive and painful tactic, when the F.B.I. interrogated him”. Somehow that went completely over your head, to the point where you made a big deal of bolding the line about Zubaydah in post 615, with no acknowledgment of the earlier point.

Cohersive and harsh, but not what was applied in reverse SERE, nor you did reply here to Mr. Nashiri’s case. It is also not good to ignore that like that there were many other incidents were indeed information of value was obtained already by other means, the point stands that torture made the situation worse and less reliable as information gathering.

As for the discussion having value, I do think that it has as we can all see who pays attention ot not.

@Fotheringay-Phipps

It’s common to shorten long names and some people mind and some people don’t. In this case, Tom referred to you as “Gigo” and you didn’t object, so I figured you were OK with it. My apologies.

Like I said about attention.

It is GIGO not GICO as you posted.