# Torture is Most Likely Very Effective **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098 "2009-04-23T14:22:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/21 "2009-04-23T15:37:18Z")
The OP’s title is: “Torture is Most Likely Very Effective” From my post above, last line, is this tidbit from someone with experience in the field: “Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn’t know “any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea.”” Ball is in the OP’s court to prove torture’s effectiveness methinks (again totally ignoring the morality of it all which is the 800 pound gorilla in the room even if torture is shown to be effective). Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/22 "2009-04-23T15:38:06Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > (In addition, I imagine a lot of the confessed witches were in fact witches. I believe you’ve confused your own disbelief in the power of witchcraft with the beliefs of the accused witches themselves.) Sir, as the descendant of a Cooke who was forced to leave Salem, which our ancestor founded, under threat of being charged, and a relative of several others, I can categorically deny that charge. They were puritans, members of the church. ---
**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:** [April 23, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/23 "2009-04-23T15:39:29Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > @ **Fotheringay-Phipps** : You asked for hard evidence and **Lemur** gave you hard evidence – the historical record of people falsely confessing under torture. He gave hard evidence for something that was not in question and had been acknowledged up front. > [@](#): > > You summarily dismissed this, claiming you addressed this “at length” in your OP. In fact, you spent perhaps a sentence or two on the issue. You noted this is a common objection, that the record shows it to be well-founded, but that torture performed “correctly” (a never-explained concept) will not suffer this defect. I discussed in several paragraphs ways to avoid this. i.e. refraining from demanding confessions of specific facts, use of corroborating info, and combination with other techniques. > [@](#): > > I suppose you do say that torturing for information on specific claims is verboten. Again, we are not told how such torture would proceed. Does the torturer say “Let’s have a chat while you’re on this Catherine wheel!”? At any rate, this is almost immediately undermined by your caveat that the torturer needs to be able to corroborate the information gotten, which would seem to require that specific claims are being investigated under torture. I’m not a professional here, but it doesn’t seem hard to imagine. You force a guy to testify about who he knows, where the safe houses are, what the methodology is etc. etc. Then you spy on those people and locations etc. Also you compare it to what other prisoners tell you. And so on. > [@](#): > > In short, by using a smattering of informal fallacies, including [argumentum ad ignoratiam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_ignorantiam) and [begging the question](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petitio_principii), you have crafted an apparent proof of the utility of torture. It goes without saying, the effect is merely illusory. This seems dishonest to me. I never claimed anywhere that I had proved anything, and I was pretty explicit in the penultimate paragraph that I was offering my opinion in the absence of hard evidence. I imagine there’s some fancy Latin term for what you did as well, but am too lazy to look one up. > [@villa](#): > > If said torture, as is likely, leads to the radicalization of persons X1 through X100, who go on to commit terrorist acts Y1 through Y100, the effectiveness of torture is pretty much in dispute, wouldn’t you say? I would. But that doesn’t happen to be what I’m interested in discussing here. (I noted this in my “It goes without saying …” paragraph.) > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It’s a damn sight more than you’ve got for evidence. It’s not a damn sight more than anything. It’s zero. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/24 "2009-04-23T15:47:22Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If I could, I wouldn’t have said “I imagine”. > > But it seems logical to me. In a society in which virtually everyone believed in (the powers of) witchcraft it would make sense if some people would practice it. And it would also make sense if a disproportionate percentage of these people were accused of it. And that betrays the kind of thinking process you employ. Or expect us to employ. Either way. “People believed there were witches in their midst, people tortured people they thought were witches in their midst, lots of “witches” confessed ergo we can assume that some of them must have really been witches”. But just because a majority of people believe in werewolves doesn’t mean werewolves exist. Or God, to give you a more relatable example. Contrast to “I believe torture works, we torture people to get information, ergo we can assume that torture works”. The truth is, there’s a reason **every culture** dropped torture from its legal investigation framework at some point in its history. Because it’s abhorrent, is always abused, and doesn’t work. > [@](#): > > The barbarous custom of whipping men suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this method of interrogation, by putting men to the torture, is useless. The wretches say whatever comes into their heads and whatever they think one wants to believe. Consequently, the Commander-in-Chief forbids the use of a method which is contrary to reason and humanity Napoleon wrote that. In seventeen fucking ninety eight. In an age where torture was understood and very, very common. Do you think Napoleon was an achy-breaky hearted liberal ? That he was the sort of man who’d let ethical reasons dictate his course of action ? As far as “ends justify means” go, French revolutionaries in general and Napoleon in particular would be the textbook reference. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/25 "2009-04-23T15:47:41Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > It’s not a damn sight more than anything. It’s zero. Your evidence for torture being effective = 0 My evidence against it being effective = 2 experts in the field one of whom categorically notes that he knows of no intelligence officers who think torture is effective Of the two of us who has the more compelling evidence? ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/26 "2009-04-23T15:50:49Z")
Even if it was shown that torture was effective, and you could get accurate info, do you really end up with important results? If someone is capured who has sensitive info about location of weapons, plans for upcoming assaults, and other relevant stuff, wouldn’t the other side know that he had been captured, was probably revealing what he knows, and then just change their plans accordingly? [yes, I majored in “run-on sentences” in college] In other words, wouldn’t any info a soldier had become obsolete fairly quickly? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/27 "2009-04-23T15:58:00Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Your evidence for torture being effective = 0 > > My evidence against it being effective = 2 experts in the field one of whom categorically notes that he knows of no intelligence officers who think torture is effective > > Of the two of us who has the more compelling evidence? Adding another data point: > [@](#): > > “At the end of the day, it’s very easy to distinguish between the right thing and the wrong thing to do. If you do the wrong thing, you’re not going to get any positive payoff from it and it’s going to be of at some great cost,” Jacobs said. “We get much more information if we treat people properly.” > > \ > > “You need to be aggressive to get the information you want, but if you treat people inhumanely, they’re just going to tell you what they think you want to hear,” he said. “They’ll do anything just to get the mistreatment to stop, so you get nothing from mistreatment.” > > Speaking of his experiences, Jacobs said he has had the best success by being decent to people. > > \ > > “When I was in Vietnam, we were given the most intelligence, the best intelligence and had the most success with captors if we gave them cigarettes, medical care, food (and) water. Almost always, you get the best success from treating people properly,” Jacobs said. > > SOURCE: [Jack Jacobs, Retired Army Colonel, Medal of Honor Recipient for actions in Vietnam plus 2 Silver Stars, 3 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts (speaking to MSNBC)](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9958544/) But hey…what do these guys know about it compared to us? :rolleyes: 3 - 0 now. ---
**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:** [April 23, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/28 "2009-04-23T15:58:08Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > My evidence against it being effective = 2 experts in the field one of whom categorically notes that he knows of no intelligence officers who think torture is effective Neither of your sources made this claim. As has been noted repeatedly, there are other reasons for opposing torture beyond ineffectiveness. > [@Kobal2](#): > > But just because a majority of people believe in werewolves doesn’t mean werewolves exist. You’ve failed to understand what I was saying. BTW, do you have a source for the Napolean quote? > [@vertizontal](#): > > If someone is capured who has sensitive info about location of weapons, plans for upcoming assaults, and other relevant stuff, wouldn’t the other side know that he had been captured, was probably revealing what he knows, and then just change their plans accordingly? Easier said than done, in many cases. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/29 "2009-04-23T15:58:11Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I still think they should do way more research into truth drugs, including using LSD on captives. A lot of these terrorists or suspected terrorists are really uneducated guys with no knowledge of psychedelic drugs or what they do, or the concept of brain chemistry for that matter. I think if you gave some of these guys a heavy dose of mescaline or acid during interrogation, and dressed up as the Prophet Muhammed and said that you were being sent back to earth to check up on the progress of your soldiers, and asked the guy to tell you everything he knew…he would be more likely to do that than if he was tortured. First of all they aren’t 6 years old or George McFly from Back to the Future. Second, doesn’t Afghanistan have the highest production of opium-based drugs in the world? I don’t think the concept of mind altering drugs is foreign to them. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/30 "2009-04-23T16:05:50Z")
I can’t believe I’m dumb enough to once again enter this fray, but here goes. Once again, the standard disclaimer: I do not advocate torture. Torture is wrong. Torture is a crime. Torture is bad. I do not like torture in any way. Sure, I seem a bit excessive in making this point but I usually find in these threads that somebody ends up saying “If you think torture is so great why don’t you marry it?” So moving on. I understand that people being tortured will tell lies. But the point is that people being interrogated in general tell lies. Little children being gently questioned by their loving mothers tell lies about who broke the lamp. Suspects being grilled by the police tell lies about who robbed the bank. Husbands being questioned by their suspicious wives tell lies about where they were last night. Most people being interrogated are going to tell lies. So why does any do an interrogation? Because it’s possible to get the truth out a person even if that person is trying to tell lies. No interrogator walks into an interrogation with a blank slate. They already know something. And they can use that knowledge to make intelligent estimates of when the other person is telling a lie. So torture doesn’t make people tell the truth. Torture makes people talk. And once they start talking it’s just another interrogation. They talk and the interrogator decides if it’s true or false based on the knowledge he has. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/31 "2009-04-23T16:13:08Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I swear I head the sound of a record needle scratching when I read this. Was the record playing backwards? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/32 "2009-04-23T16:13:35Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Neither of your sources made this claim. From the cite above: \*Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn’t know “any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea.” SOURCE: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan11.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan11.html) \* I think “not a good idea” means “ineffective”. ---
**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:** [April 23, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/33 "2009-04-23T16:17:50Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > I think “not a good idea” means “ineffective”. I disagree, as previously noted. It could be “not a good idea” for any number of other reasons. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/34 "2009-04-23T16:19:50Z")
The effectiveness of torture is irrelevant. If a given means of interrogation is unacceptably immoral, it doesn’t matter whether it successfully gets information from suspects. To use a crude analogy, Dr. Mengele would be evil even IF his sick experiments produced any worthwhile scientific knowledge. There are some things we JUST DON’T DO, even if it might actually produce some desirable results. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/35 "2009-04-23T16:25:14Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > But it seems logical to me. In a society in which virtually everyone believed in (the powers of) witchcraft it would make sense if some people would practice it. And it would also make sense if a disproportionate percentage of these people were accused of it. Similarly, it only seems logical that christians regularly raise their loved ones from the dead using the power of Christ. In a culture where everyone believes that’s possible, it only makes sense if some people would do it. And it also makes sense that if you accuse a random christain of raising the dead, you’re probably right, by the well known law of Random Accusations Are Usually Correct. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/36 "2009-04-23T16:27:16Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > BTW, do you have a source for the Napolean quote? Wikipedia ties it to : Napoleon Bonaparte, Letters and Documents of Napoleon, Volume I: The Rise to Power, selected and translated by John Eldred Howard (London: The Cresset Press, 1961), 274. And considering Napoleon is the [primary instigator of the modern legal system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_code), a system which doesn’t happen to involve torture, I’m disinclined to doubt the veracity of the quote in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/37 "2009-04-23T16:30:18Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I disagree, as previously noted. It could be “not a good idea” for any number of other reasons. That quote was preceded by: “Yet – as he remembers saying to the “desperate and honorable officers” who wanted him to move faster – “if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy’s genitals, he’s going to tell you just about anything,” which would be pointless.”" In other words, torture is an ineffective means to gain information. The next quote I cited says: “You need to be aggressive to get the information you want, but if you treat people inhumanely, they’re just going to tell you what they think you want to hear,” he said. “They’ll do anything just to get the mistreatment to stop, so you get nothing from mistreatment.” In other words, torture is an ineffective means to gain information. ETA: I will also note you have yet to provide sources that claim the effectiveness of torture. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/38 "2009-04-23T16:36:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I understand that people being tortured will tell lies. But the point is that people being interrogated in general tell lies. Little children being gently questioned by their loving mothers tell lies about who broke the lamp. Which is why their loving mothers usually \*have \*to put the tykes to the blowtorch, in spite of the fact that they really don’t like having to do so. But the children don’t really give them a choice, do they ? > [@](#): > > So torture doesn’t make people tell the truth. Torture makes people talk. And once they start talking it’s just another interrogation. They talk and the interrogator decides if it’s true or false based on the knowledge he has. And if he decides it’s false, he cranks the dial to eleven and tries again until he gets what he decides is true. Even if the first answer was the truth. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/39 "2009-04-23T16:37:32Z")
Hey look…a reference to a study on this very issue and guess what they found? > [@](#): > > In 2006, a group of scientists and retired intelligence officers set out to settle the matter. They sought to find the most effective interrogation tactics and advise the U.S. government on their use. Their conclusions, laid out in a 372-page report for the director of national intelligence, argued against harsh interrogation. > > “The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information,” retired Air Force Col. Steven M. Kleinman, a former military-interrogation instructor, wrote in the Intelligence Science Board report. “In essence, there seems to be an unsubstantiated assumption that ‘compliance’ carries the same connotation as ‘meaningful cooperation.”‘ > > In short: Slam someone up against the wall, keep him awake for days, lock him naked in a cell and slap his face enough, and he will probably say something. That doesn’t necessarily make it true. > > SOURCE: [http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/apr/22/how-effective-is-harsh-torture-no-definitive-answe/news/](http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/apr/22/how-effective-is-harsh-torture-no-definitive-answe/news/) ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098/40 "2009-04-23T16:39:19Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Hey look…a reference to a study on this very issue and guess what they found? Don’t waste your breath. The OP made it very clear that conclusive scientific studies showing that there is no evidence torture is effective are not good enough to conclude torture is not effective. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-is-most-likely-very-effective/494098.md?page=3)