The Israelis have an intelligence unit whose specialty is interrogation on terrorist prisoners. Through surveillance in the prison and agents who look and act as prisoners they build up a lot of information before they even begin interviews. The leader of the unit was interviewed in the program I saw. He said that torture is not an effective method, practically not morally. They let the prisoner think they know everything already so there is no point in hiding information any more. I am not explaining it very well, but the gist is they would use torture if it was an efficient means of gathering intelligence, but that experience has shown otherwise.
I can’t find a cite for it, but didn’t Israel have a unit who routinely used torture on suspects, using the ticking time bomb as an excuse for it. But when it was discovered that the unit would not work overtime and never in the weekend, the parliament forbid use of torture.
Okay, so we’re back to square one then. It is your opinion that torture works.
But earlier, you said:
And that is the whole problem. That’s what people mean when they say “torture doesn’t work.” Can a less intelligent person really get the same results with pliers as you do with psychology? Because there are a limited number of trained psychologists, and a whole lot of dumb guys with pliers. If they’re equally effective, why not go with the cheaper alternative?
Consider your hypothetical situation with the terrorist in Atlanta on Thursday. That’s your example of a situation in which torture would work. Yet it seems pretty obvious that torture would be a really bad choice for that situation.
What if the subject is innocent? I bet that you, with your training in psychology, have ways of evaluating that through interrogation. But your hypothetical torturer doesn’t do that, because he’s less intelligent.
Your scenario specifies that the torturer already knows the information “Thursday” and “Atlanta,” and that is how he will know the subject’s story is accurate. But there are only seven days in a week, and Atlanta is one of the larger international airports. Even an innocent person would probably hit on that combination fairly quickly. If you were interrogating them with psychology, they would have no reason to make up information, because they’re innocent. But they’re being tortured. How long does it take before the torturer gives up trying to extract nonexistent information?
But what if your subject really does have the information you need? Will your less intelligent torturer really get it any faster with pliers? You’ve already said that modern interrogation techniques verify information by comparing it with already known data. So it seems to me that any terrorist worth his salt is going to know to intentionally mix real information in with the false. Will the guy with pliers be able to determine this?
As you point out, not everyone has your gift or patience. Not everyone has your training. Less intelligent people will certainly see the appeal of using pliers and a chisel to get the same results that you do. But they’d be wrong, wouldn’t they? Intelligence and training is necessary to get accurate information, no matter what the method. So a system which relies on less intelligent people with pliers and chisels is not going to be anywhere near as effective as a system which limits itself to intelligent people with training and insight.
Its starkly and cruelly simple. If the enemy has your guy, they know everything he knew when he was captured. Any plans, any codes, and safe houses, any of that…is compromised. Duh.
Hence, unless your enemy is incredibly stupid and inept, the only information that you will obtain through torture is outdated information. The victim knows where the safe houses were yesterday, not where they are today. By capturing and torturing an enemy, you disrupt any plots or plans he knew about. But then, you accomplish the same end by capturing him, since your enemy most likely assumes the worst. And they will, won’t they, knowing that you are an evil and immoral foe? Just as you know them.
No clandestine and/or terrorist organization that does not know and follow these rather simple rules would last long enough to be a threat.
Actually I’ve been constructing little Punnett squares trying to work out whether it would be safe to mix true information with false, and now I’m kind of doubting it. The hypothetical presumes five facts, of which the torturer has two… the victim doesn’t know how much information the torturer has… If the victim includes any false fact with any true facts, then none of the facts will reveal the plan… And any confession with the two known facts and any one false fact will oppose any true confession…
Okay, fine. So maybe I, personally, wouldn’t be very good at resisting interrogation.
But I’m sure any actual terrorist would know that to begin with. They probably think about being tortured a lot.
I could go to my university library and casually pull books that spell it out in some detail. The difficulty is in creating the fuel, not building the bomb itself, and the process of Uranium enrichment also isn’t some arcane secret, it just requires a large industrial infrastructure that can’t easily be hidden.
Let’s just assume that you are correct, and there’s a zero percent chance that he comes up with something the torturer thinks is plausible. What happens then? Does the torturer continue to torture the suspect for his lack of compliance?
Nemo. You must remember this surely?
You don’t, eh ? Johnson, get the pliers.
You’re going off on to a different issue.The question isn’t whether or not torture exists. I think that point is conceded. Governments do use torture even if they shouldn’t and even if other alternatives could do the same work.
The question we’re supposedly discussing is that once a government chooses to use torture for whatever reason, does it get results from that torture? And I’m saying yes for the reasons I’ve given.
As I outlined it, a government decides to use torture for the supposed reason of gathering intelligence about what it perceives as a security threat. The government commits the torture at some cost. There are methods that could use torture to gether useful intelligence such as I’ve described.
So as I’ve asked before, why wouldn’t the government do what they’re claiming they’re doing? If they’re going to torture people for the supposed reason of interrogating them, why wouldn’t they actually interrogate them? If you’re going to torture some suspect anyway why wouldn’t you conduct a legitimate interrogation while doing it and get some useful information out of him?
I’m positive that there are many instances where members of the French Underground in WWII succumbed to torture by the Gestapo and revealed details of upcoming sabotage (or terrorism, depends on which side you were as to what you label it).
This is precisely the reason why Allied agents were given poison capsules to use in case of capture. Their bosses knew only too well that the bravest of men or women might reach the point where they revealed all they knew.
Unfortunately, torture did work for the Nazis (although it’s also true that some exceptional human beings withstood all the Gestapo could do without talking.)
I don’t believe you’ve given any reasons, just your opinion. You proposed a hypothetical situation, and that’s it.
Why not? Because, as you said earlier, many torturers won’t have the same skills you do. Because dumb, untrained people will think that they can get the same results as trained psychologists, just by employing torture. And since nobody talks about torture, there will be no supervision to ensure that legitimate interrogation methods are being used. People will make the decision to torture because it’s easier, not because it’s accurate.
You’re saying that torture works because you think that a skilled professional such as yourself could use it effectively as part of legitimate interrogation procedure. But it’s really the training and professionalism that “work,” not the torture. As you said, you can get reliable information without torture. But the more torturers are employed, the less professionalism and training will be adhered to. Because nobody talks about torture.
You mentioned Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as examples of nations that conspicuously practiced torture. Did they get better results overall? They’re both gone.
Indeed. I figure it’s safe to say that a political organization reliant on torture isn’t going to be held in esteem either internally or abroad.
After all, nobody respects the Spanish Inquisition.
You’re still trapped in the false dilemma of saying that if torture works then you have to accept it. So you and others who think the same feel you have to argue that torture doesn’t work in order to oppose it.
But, as I said, it’s a false dilemma. It’s possible to oppose torture while still conceding the truth that it does work.
Besides aldiboronti makes a good point. Here
So there you go. A cite that torture was successfully used to gather information. The case is closed.
The thing is, normal people don’t enjoy torture. When a prisoner comes in to be tortured, somebody’s got to do it. The cops who don’t enjoy torturing prisoners are going to farm the work out the the cops who enjoy it.
And this is the inevitable consequence of routine torture. You have professional torturers whose main qualification is that they really really like torturing people. Surely you can see the problem now, because then the torture isn’t really about finding information anymore. It becomes torture for the sake of torture. It’s no good looking for a heroic torturer who hates torture but does it anyway because he loves his country. And so the information dries up because nobody who works at the torture chamber gives a shit about information.
But somebody at some level is in charge and is making the decisons about whether or not the torturers get to work. He’s the precinct commander who decides to let Officer Smith work over a suspect. Or the general who decides to let Captain Jones get a little rough when he interrogates a POW. Or the president who authorizes Agent Brown to waterboard a suspected terrorist.
These people are the ones in charge and they’re the ones who decide whether or not the torture happens in some back room. But they’re not in those rooms - they get no personal enjoyment out of torture and may even dislike the idea. They’re back in their office waiting for the results. And if the torturer doesn’t produce those results then he won’t be allowed to continue torturing people. And they have to be credible results. The boss isn’t going to take the heat for allowing torture unless he feels he’s getting something of value in return.
Good grief… Read the passage you quoted again. Then read the part after it. Yes, your cite says that the Nazis used torture as a means of extracting information. IT DOES NOT SAY THEY WERE SUCCESSFUL. In fact it says that thousands of innocent people were executed. Torture was so unsuccessful that the Nazis had to escalate to wiping out whole villages, and they STILL didn’t stop the French Resistance. This is not a success story.
In fact, it’s you who are missing the point; because I have already conceded that among the innumerable incidents of torture throughout history, at least some must have uncovered accurate information. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
This is not just an aphorism here: A clock can deliver the correct time twice a day, but that does not mean it works. Torture may deliver accurate information in some cases-- many cases if you’re torturing many people-- but that does not mean it works. It has to work BETTER, overall, than not using torture. It has to help you achieve your goals better. Otherwise it is counterproductive and a waste of time and resources.
The French Resistance outlasted the Nazis. There were no witches.
And that’s the way it played out over the last eight years, did it? Plenty of accountability in evidence? No simple denials that torture ever occurred, or disappearing records of improper interrogations? No passing the buck and finger-pointing after evidence surfaced that interrogators got a little overzealous? Because I seem to recall hearing some reports to the contrary.
If the bosses are in danger of taking heat for allowing torture, why would they acknowledge the failures?
Contrariwise, if the bosses are in no danger of taking heat for allowing torture, why would they care?
Sure they were successful - against the French. Germany was defeated by the Soviets and the Americans and the British Empire. But Germany beat France and kept it under control. They stopped the French Resistance from succeeding.
Besides, I was asked to “name a single instance in the history of the world” which I is what I did.
They don’t acknowledge the failures. Just like they don’t acknowledge the successes. What people know is that the torture exists. And the bosses take heat for that - even in a totalitarian police state there’s going to be some public unrest. And there will always be international pressure.
So the bosses pay a cost for allowing torture to happen. And they see the results that come from that torture. If there were no results they would stop the torture because there would be no point in paying the cost and getting nothing for it.
They kept France under control? Your definition of “control” is liquidating thousands of innocents? The Nazis were trying to ELIMINATE the French Resistance. In the parlance of the Internet age, this is what is known as an “epic fail.”
The French Resistance was NEVER stopped. They won. With their help, France was liberated and the Nazis were defeated.
That’s great, but I didn’t ask you that. And in fact, you still haven’t answered, because you were asked to name a single instance where torture has prevented an act of terrorism.
I fully believe that those bosses THINK that torture works. The Nazis thought that torture worked. The Inquisition thought that torture worked. The witch hunters thought that torture worked. Why torture all those people if they weren’t getting results? But in the end, there were no witches. All those people died for nothing.
Superficially, it makes perfect sense. Why wouldn’t torture work? If you hurt someone hard enough and long enough, they will do what you want.
And yet when you are asked to give a cite-- a single cite, from this century, the last century, all of history-- you come up with nothing. “Well, the Nazis tortured the French Resistance, so… that must have accomplished something, at some point, surely. Let’s just assume that some names were named. Why go into details?” Christ, I bet I could come up with a successful torture session if I went looking for one. Interrogation is supposedly your job, you’re telling me that torture works, and you can’t name a single notable incident from, hell, the reign of King Charles or whatever?
But that’s not even the issue, because as I said, I bet I could find examples. But that doesn’t prove torture works. The torturers’ belief doesn’t prove that torture works either. There were no witches.
Why would anyone authorize torture, if it doesn’t work? Because they believe it should work. And anything remotely resembling successful information reinforces that belief, while the failures are forgotten. And if you have authorized torture, you’re not going to want to acknowledge that you made a mistake. Selective vision. Selective memory. And nobody will catch you at it. Because nobody talks about torture.
If you torture someone and you get good information, well then! That proves that torture is worth the cost! But if you torture someone and you get bad information, or no information… does that mean that torture isn’t as reliable as you think it is? Or does it mean that you haven’t tortured enough?
That’s how you end up herding whole communities of innocents into concentration camps.