Then it’s disingenuous to have your thread title “Torture is Most Likely Very Effective.” This isn’t IMHO, it’s Great Debates. If you’re not interested in defending your position with facts, then you aren’t really “interested in discussing” evidence, you’re simply spoiling for a fight where you set the terms and move the goalposts at will. The fact that you are “90-95%” certain about your position, but value it too highly to actually make a substantiated case for it in a GREAT DEBATES forum, shows not just intellectualy dishonesty, but cowardice.
Well, gosh, I guess you could help everyone out by defining exactly what you will accept as “hard evidence,” if you are indeed “interested in discussing what hard evidence there might be that shows torture to be effective or ineffective.”
I’d say expert testimony and the findings of scientific study count as hard evidence, but apparently not so for you.
The goalposts have not moved since the OP. In my previous post I reiterated and quoted a position that I made in the OP, so your accusation in response that I’m moving the goalposts is invalid.
If you look around GD you’ll find a lot of threads that are of this form. But if you dislike that type of discussion, you should have skipped it, as I was upfront about the nature of my position from the outset.
I think the fields of neuroscience and pharmacology have gotten a little more sophisticated since the days of MK ULTRA.
And the notion that acid and other psychedelics just “make you see pink bunny rabbits from outer space” is what happens when people get their information about psychedelics from comedy movies. Psychedelics are an incredibly powerful psychological tool - they have a massively wide-ranging variety of effects that go way beyond “trippy” visual hallucinations. Alexander Shulgin conducted a lot of amazing research on brain chemistry and how it’s affected by drugs of all kinds - unfortunately, the government shut down his lab and tried to cast aside all of the discoveries that he made as if they were meaningless.
The human brain and consciousness is a biological computer, and with sufficient research and determination, we can hack into it. I think psychedelics can be used in conjunction with EEG imaging, artificial stimulation of the brain, and many other kinds of neurological research, to extract information from people’s heads.
If it contradicts his convictions, it can’t be all that hard, can it ?
No, the difference (the nuances of which obviously elude you) is that in those threads, when people say they’re interested in “discussing” a topic and take a formal position in the OP, they operate in good faith and defend said position and/or present evidence that adds to the discussion. You’ve done neither.
Spirited point-counterpoint I can handle. Engaging chickenshit “devil’s advocacy” from someone without even the courage to defend his convictions (convictions he claims to be 90+% secure in)? I’ll pass.
Here’s a NYT article that shoots the OP’s argument right between the eyes. It was written by an interrogator of terrorists and Iraqi prisoners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
“There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics.”
“In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions…”
“The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.”
The Canadian Government agrees with Ali Soufan
Yes and no. We do understand quite a bit more about the operation of the brain and psychoactive drugs that act as stimulants and inhibitors of various receptors. To date, however, this has not allowed any kind of ability to predict or control thoughts or behaviors in the specific way required to reliably extract information or control behavior, and in fact research has demonstrated that the action of psychotropic drugs varies dramatically between individuals.
I don’t mean to give offense, but these statements indicate a nearly complete lack of understanding of the current state of neuroscience. The brain may be considered a biological computer, but it is an extremely complex, non-linear, self-modifying computer unlike anything out of the factories of Intel and AMD. Our current understanding of neurophysiology is only at the very base level of the action of individual neurons and the simple connections between them, and is still significant incomplete even at that level. Our understanding of the complex processes that govern even the simplest subconscious thought processes on a physical level is basically nil, and our grasp of consciousness as a gestalt is so negligible even our language for describing it is clumsy and obscure, similar in character to Aristotlian descriptions of physics. The notion that we can plug someone into an EEG topography machine, feed them tabs of LSD, and track the neurological action and resultant thought processes, much less control someone and obtain reliable, non-manufactured information is laughable naive; which would be amusing except that the promise of “fighting terrorists” or somesuch may convince the American public to accept such measures as a necessary evil.
Ian Glynn’s An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the Mind gives a pretty comprehensive, not too technical survey of the state of neurology and neuroscience for the layman, and clearly indicates that while we can indicate general zones where different types of processing occurs (visual, aural, judgment, creative thought, et cetera) we are not anywhere close to being able to map out the activities of specific though processes.
Stranger
It seems to me that this supports the idea that (in this case) torture IS effective in eliciting information. It also happens that (in this case) each bit of information elicited was available elsewhere or obtainable with standard interrogation techniques (and can backfire).
He doesn’t support torture, so he doesn’t count. Duh.
Or, he must not have been doing it right. Duh.
Having read A History Of Torture and the torture section of Panatti’s Extraordinary Endings Of Practically Everything And Everybody, I say torture just doesn’t work. A surprising percentage of people will never talk. Of those who do talk, most will give false information.
It isn’t a matter of doing it ‘right’. With all the advances in psychology, torture methods have shown little development.
As for ‘the effective torturers don’t publicize’, what about the Gestapo, the KGB, the Khmer Rouge, etc? Do you think they were shy in the least about their use of torture? Do you think their tortures were more effective? Doesn’t it scare you that you’re agreeing with a position backed by the Gestapo, the KGB, and the Khmer Rouge?
Oh and add the Ton Ton Mcoot. I bet they weren’t afraid to torture and admit it publicly.
<pedant>It’s “Tonton Macoute(s)”.</pedant>
I also suspect I misspelled Khmer Rouge.
Let’s see:
First, you set an odd standard that you will only accept references from people who have already engaged in torture–thus giving them a vested interest in defending the practice–while excluding testimony from anyone else, regardless whether they have had the opportunity to actually study the practice and its results.
Then you decide to simply declare, without the slightest shred of evidence, that you are going to write your own version of history in a way that will support your claims.
I am really surprised that anyone has bothered to engage in this farce.
For your next thread, I would expect to see the promulgation of Flying Spaghetti Monster Creation where the only testimony permitted in opposition will be that of former Pastafarians and where part of your argument will include the dismissal of any scientific testimony on the grounds that we do not really know that the scientists did not actually believe in Pastafarianism.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html CIA officials deny that it stopped any attacks as Cheney claims. Bob Baer a 22 year CIA veteran simply states that it does not work.
A subject under torture will say anything the subject thinks might get the interrogator to stop. It will not necessarily bear any relationship to the truth.
See Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, by Charlie Savage, Chapter 9, “The Torture Ban.” The no-visible-marks-left psychological torture methods – sleep deprivation, loud noises all night, heat and cold, shackling in stressed positions, threatening with dogs, defiling Korans, etc. – that our military has been documented as using on prisoners, e.g., at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, originally were invented by the North Koreans, and were successful in getting American POWs to appear in films falsely confessing to war crimes. U.S. interrogation experts (psychologists) studied it and determined the process is useless for any purpose but the production of false propaganda; no reliable information can be extracted, only what the subject thinks the interrogator wants to hear.
But during the Bush Admin, the authorities lost sight of that distinction. The methods were used in the SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, and Escape) program, in which American special forces personnel were put through such psychological torture, solely to train them to resist it if captured. After 9/11, NCOs who had played the part of foreign interrogators in such simulations (but who were not psychologists or interrogation specialists) were put in charge of real interrogations and expected to get reliable information from prisoners, and for the most part they didn’t.
And even if the victim is telling you the truth, he might only be telling you what he thinks is true. What was true yesterday, what they told him. Just as soon as you know that the other team has one of your guys, you change everything he knew. Duh. If he knew about safe house “A”, you abandon it. Codes, routes of communication? Same deal, ditch 'em.
Which is why clandestine organizations are so often copycats of the Leninist Bolshevik “cell” structure" no member knows the personal details of any other member, any more than absolutely necessary. Not even their true name, most often.
Even before America soiled herself with these tactics, they were widely used, Al Queda was certainly aware that they might be captured and tortured by…well, anybody, Iran, Saudis, Israelis, they got enemies. So its not like techniques to limit the damage hadn’t crossed their minds. They had to know that sooner or later, someone gets caught, they are tortured, they break. If they are smart, they take it as given that the victim has already blabbed.
And, hell, whats to stop them from picking some expendable shlub, fill his head with heavy “information” that he thinks is true, make him think he’s a got the major inside shit, and just tip him in. Let the other guys run themselves ragged running down false leads and wild geese, so much the better for real skulduggery. About the only drawback to that is: its not very nice.
Come to think of it, there are hints that this scenario fits Mr. Zubaydah rather neatly, that he was a lower level “logistics” guy. There are suggestions that much energy was expended pursuing his leads nowhere. So, then, knowing for sure and for certain that he was privy to major info, they tortured him for what he was hiding. Except that he wasn’t. Poor dumb bastard.
A wilderness of mirrors, as professional paranoid James Jesus Angleton once remarked about espionage.
For myself I am of the opinion, as stated earlier, that discussions of torture’s effectiveness should not even enter in to the discussion. It is such a morally bankrupt notion it should end on that count alone.
But I figured as an exercise it was worthwhile to have a thread where the “effectiveness” of torture is thoroughly debunked, clearly and concisely. I think that has been achieved and the OP’s notions to be utterly without merit or basis in fact.
Now, if any of us ever come across someone who wants to say high-minded ideals are all well and good but fail in the real world we all have more than enough ammunition to say that even in the real world, even if we are ok with bankrupting our morals to secure our safety, torture is absolutely not a means to those ends. Not only is it ineffective to get information (indeed downright awful) it almost certainly makes all of us less secure as has been noted.
In short, torture fails on pretty much every measure unless your goal is to have someone say something for the cameras that the person speaking does not really believe (which I also think the rest of the world sees for the bullshit that is and has little positive effect for those doing the torturing except to piss off their enemy even more).