Even that term doesn’t necessarily mean what it implies. If they got some nonsense made up on the spot to stop the pain, that’s “information”. If it’s something like “The guy across the street is making bombs in his basement”, then you can go grab the guy across the street. That makes that “information” “actionable”.
But it’s still all nonsense.
The preconception on the torturer’s part that the subject really does have real and useful information, and that torture will get it out of him since nothing else has done the trick, just makes there be more torture.
If the torturer can’t accept the possibility that the subject might not really be a witch after all, then he’ll do what it takes to prove that he is.
And you can argue that virtually anything is effective by suggesting hopelessly rose-colored, pie-in-the-sky, perfect world scenarios in which it might be used.
Gee, but all these “experts” that you’re falling back on as evidence (“they do it so it must work”) were also torturing off these brainless ideas. So which is it–are they authorities because they do it, or are they unrealible because they don’t do it “properly”?
However, this “true confession” from somebody with delusions would not lead to any information that would be of any use whatsoever. But you don’t seem to have a problem with that. As long as they thought they were witches that’s good enough for you to call their torture session “successful” We now know that witches exist and we must guard against them. The mind boggles.
Yes, torture will get people to talk. They will tell you stuff. They will confess their delusions or whatever. However, from cites above from ACTUAL INTELLIGENCE AGENTS that try to get information for a living, we have learned that the information obtained is NOT USEFUL.
That seems reasonable to me, unless you mean something specific by your use of “we”. “It’s likely that Method X works because many professionals tend to rely on it” is a reasonable statement.
I don’t recall this. Where was this cited?
Torturers don’t tend to publicize what they do, for obvious reasons.
I’ve nowhere advocated torturing anyone, let alone “across the board”.
He gave a specific exaggerated example and said it would be pointless. He wasn’t commenting on the general efficiency of torture. (ISTM that the position of guys like him is "we have other methods that work, and torture is not foolproof either, in addition to a host of other problems, so it’s not worth it.) And if he was, he wasn’t qualified to do so, since he had no experience using that method.
That’s a valid point.
That’s true. I said earlier that they could be wrong. As could similar interrogators today in places that don’t have moral qualms about torture. As could the CIA people who pushed for this particular program. They could all be wrong. But the experts that you quote could also be wrong. You can’t find a few interrogators who say it’s ineffective and ignore the fact that the majority of professionals appear to believe that (absent moral and other considerations) it’s effective.
You gave specific examples of instances where torture was not used to extract genuine information. But it’s also true that many interrogators who are trying to extract information also favor torture.
How do you know that?
Isn’t torture “most likely very effective” as a coercive method in rubber-hose cryptanalysis? If the password gains entry to the needed data, we can sidestep the whole “we can’t know if it works” business.
I would like to know who these “many professionals” are, and if they have put their faith in the usefulness of torture in writing anywhere. Cite please.
Hopefully a cite from someone with credibility, such as retired Air Force Col. Steven M. Kleinman, a former military-interrogation instructor, or Jack Jacobs, Retired Army Colonel, Medal of Honor Recipient for actions in Vietnam plus 2 Silver Stars, 3 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts.
eta:
Sorry, did not read this bit from you:
Ahhh, so no cites will be forthcoming, because the REALLY GOOD torturers keep everything all secret like. Gotchya. Torture works, because we do it, but we can’t provide evidence that it works, just trust me.
It isn’t, and that’s why your reasoning falls flat on its arse. A correct statement would be “many professionals tend to rely on Method X because they believe it works”, but that’s no indication at all that Method X actually does work. Lots of people rely on astrology, dousing for water and programming in Visual Basic (shudder). Does that mean astrology, dousing for water and programming in Visual Basic are strong, reliable methods ?
Hmm, not this thread, I apologize for that. Either one of the two other “Isn’t torture swell ?” threads going on ATM
I’m sorry, what ? So… where do you get the idea that the majority of experts do think it works ? Do you assume that anyone not making an explicit “it doesn’t work” statement for the press must therefore think it does work ? Because the evidence in favor of torture isn’t likely to be published, and you can find no published testimony in favor of it, it must be deduced that evidence in favor of torture exists ? Absense of proof is proof of proof ? That’s a novel logical fallacy, I’ll grant you that.
Nevertheless, consider it an hypothetical. Why wouldn’t it be the justified and logical followup of condoning torture under the guise of “national emergency” ? What is the hurdle in the way of that slippery slope ?
I’m rather dense. What are those obvious reasons?
Seems like a bit of a disconnect here, doesn’t it. You say that torturers don’t publisize what they do, so how could you possibly know what they favor?
We know that Bush Administration officials favored it, having ordered. We can infer that CIA and Military heads favored it, having ordered it.
Is it possible that interrogators would have preferred other methods, but were directed to user torture for the sake of expedience?
FACT: We have tortured people who were randomly picked up (by bounty hunters, etc.)
FACT: You said, “More importantly, there are obviously any number of other interrogators who think it’s highly effective. As proof (of their belief, that is): they do it!”
Since this is your only “evidence” that there are experts out there who have “proof” that torture works, then inevitably, people from Group One (those who tortured random people) must fall in as a subset of Group Two (those who torture who think it’s highly effective).
That means that despite your assertion that torturing random people is a Brainless Idea, it was some of your very same Interrogators whose experience and motivation you so faithfully rely on that chose to indulge in that Brainless Idea.
So, if they’re so smart, why’d they do something so stupid? Or, if they’re really that stupid, how reliable can they possibly be on torture’s effectiveness in the first place?
Also on the “not very effective torture” side is John McCain. The North Vietnamese hurt him a great deal but I guess they tortured him wrong. Or else I imagine he served with some Green Bay Packers.
Bad PR.
It’s like the kid who came running in screaming “Jimmy wanted to hit me!”
“How do you know he wanted to hit me?”
If he didn’t want to hit me, then why did he?"
This is similar to the logical error that others have made in this thread.
There are any number of people in any field who have made egregious errors. That doesn’t mean you can dismiss the views of a substantial percentage of the professionals in a field since some subset of these professionals are incompetent.
Using your logical approach you could just as easily sweep away the views of doctors, physicists or any other field.
You are defining the field in terms of the method, which is not logical.
An astrologer is only trained in astrology, and isn’t selecting this as the best method of predicting the future out of the many he has available.
Also, there is other evidence WRT to astrology et al.
Maybe you can find it. I don’t believe it. What I’ve seen is that the CIA interrogators believed in a specific instance that the prisoner had no more information to give, not that the methods in general weren’t working.
This (and your previous responses about this guy) has to be one of the most evasive pile of semantics I have seen in ages. So far you are the only person remotely parsing what this guy said this way (and the others as well). It is apparent from his comments that he finds torture “pointless” in his professional opinion. A profession I might add that saw him at the pointy end of the sword…not some office somewhere.
I also submit that you have no idea what he was or wasn’t qualified to do. He was an interrogator in the Vietnam war and he resisted pressure to torture from his superiors opting instead for what he knew, as a professional, achieved better results.
I do not know but what little I can glean of the guy from the article suggests to me he’d light a Bunsen burner under your nutsack in a heartbeat if he thought it’d save American lives. Not that he is a sadist but that he’d do what he felt necessary to protect his troops.
The problem is, everytime you’re presented with evidence that torture is ineffective (though incompetency, lack of proper protocol, etc.), your answer is always that “They’re not doing it right.”
But everytime an Interrogator claims that the method is effective, you state “They are doing it right.”
But you have absolutely no evidence for either. You even make claims (“substantial percentage”, “obviously any number”) that have no support in data–just your substance-less assumptions.
You don’t know that my assertion is false; you simply dismiss it because it doesn’t conform with your preconceived notion of what’s correct and incorrect.
Yours is a cozy self-perpetuating fallacy–every piece of data that agrees with you is acceptable, and every piece of data that doesn’t is an anomaly that can be ignored for no other reason than that you choose to.
If we’re going to cast morality aside I’d like to advocate shock collars for middle schoolers, they’ll never be late for school again.
This is how you keep shifting the goal posts. You are talking about torture being effective to gather information. You then say that because people torture, we know they think it is effective in gathering information.
The assumption you are making, for which you do not provide evidence, is that the people engaging in torture are doing it to gather information. There are, as I have said, many other possible reasons for torturing people. No one denies torture is “effective” in inflicting pain. If the sole purpose is the infliction of the pain, then arguing whether it is effective or not is pretty meaningless.
As I have said multiple times now, knowing that people torture others willingly doesn’t tell you more than that the torturers believe in torture. It certainly doesn’t tell you they think it is an effective method of information gathering.
We know Jimmy wanted to hit the other kid because Jimmy hit the other kid. We don’t know if Jimmy wanted to hit the other kid because he was trying to get his lunch money, or because Jimmy didn’t like his shirt, or because Jimmy wanted to look tough in front of other kids. Similarly you have provided us no proof that the main purpose of torture was to extract information. Even if a partial aim was to get information, it is perfectly possible that those ordering the torture knew there were equally effective other methods of getting said information, but chose torture for the other things it brings which more legal interrogation techniques don’t.
Here’s the bottom line. “Is torture effective ?” is a solved problem, and has been for a long time. And the answer is “no”, except for sadism, producing terror ( there ought to be a name for that; something with an ‘ism’ on the end ), and for getting answers you want to hear regardless of truth. It’s the epitome of a bad idea; it’s ineffective, it’s evil, it makes your own situation worse, it floods you with bad data, it destroys your sources of good data.
No, that’s not how it works. Torture poisons the well; the victim becomes a far less reliable source permanently.
No, they did it because they were ignorant, as well as evil.
The experts were the ones that opposed torture; the people who supported it WEREN’T experts. The experts in question being people who HAVE tortured, in order to train people to resist it - but those same people say that it isn’t effective for gathering information.
I’m strongly reminded of certain religious arguments I encounter. “The faithful have proof ! But only the faithful can see it !”
As I recall, the torturers and the professional interrogaters were separate people; the interrogators complained about the torturers ruining their interrogations. About how they stopped getting useful data once the torturers stepped in.
I’m guessing that the OP thinks:
The OP gives a few examples of how torture can be used more correctly. However, we don’t really know if his methods have been used or not. I think it’s unlikely that the experts cited haven’t come up with the idea of corroborating information or of not asking specific questions. Yet since no one was cited saying that these methods described by the OP weren’t effective, no one has conclusively proved the OP wrong.
In my opinion if there was an effective way to use torture, then someone would have wrote about it by now. It is not enough to say that no one wants to write about it. Once the methods are exposed there is no reason to hide how effective they are.
The OP seems to be content in believing that torture is effective without any evidence, but all he has really proved so far is that it might be possible for torture to be effective. Two very different things.
What exactly is this “substantial percentage of professionals”? 58%? 74%? and where do you get this idea from anyway? What information source are you using that gives you the insight that “a substantial percentage” of individuals have the view that torture gives reliable information?