Torture doesn't work.

[Clarkie1]

Listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."

Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity." It does "damage to our country's image" and undermines our credibility in Iraq. That, in the long run, outweighs any theoretical benefit. Herrington's confidential Pentagon report, which he won't discuss but which was leaked to The Post a month ago, goes farther. In that document, he warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees in Iraq, that their activities could be "making gratuitous enemies" and that prisoner abuse "is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry." Far from rescuing Americans, in other words, the use of "special methods" might help explain why the war is going so badly.

An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture.

Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.

Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. Irrelevant. TORTURE IS WRONG.

Can't believe "moral" "democrats" got sucked into the completely irrelevant question of its efficacy. It's wrong.

[Clarkie1]

2. Not an irrelevant question at all.

I agree torture is immoral, but not all people agree with you and me if they think it's effective.

It's not, and this is critical information to understand if we are to prevent this country from using torture.

[Monkeyman]

3. Torture is not a tool people who are tortured will tell you anything to

make it stop.

[Clarkie1]

4. exactly. nt

[SmokingJacket]

5. Unfortunately, lots of people have no morals, so you have to

appeal to the fact that it's ineffective, as well.

A lot of people would argue that torturing one person is "worth it" if you save a 1000, say. That's the kind of moral quagmire you just can't argue your way out of.

But it's not even an issue if you can effectively argue that it doesn't even work.

[BlooInBloo]

8. Sheesh.

[Ksec]

6. The idea that were in a new world

and its anymore a threat than it ever was is wrong. The world has always had terrorism and evil . The difference is that the evil came home on 911. Because we saw that evil on our TVs, it seems as if the world is more dangerous . Not. Its always been dangerous. There have always been evil men. Changing the Geneva convention wont change anything other than destroying what little credibility America has left. Weve become the bad guys who torture people.

[necso]

7. Generally true, except:

1) When the objective is to get the tortured person to say whatever you want him to say. (There are exceptions to this compliance, and I acknowledge those whose strength is so great so as to bear the worst that can be thrown at them.)

2) When the objective is to give those who torture (or who command/authorize/permit torture) some form of gratification/gain: whether this is the direct, up-close and personal gratification of the torturer (who is also rewarded, sometimes well, for his "services"); or the more remote gratification/gains that torture brings to those who authorize it (and who perhaps enjoy viewing videos of said), be this because this authorization reinforces their (false, phony, pretended) personal-image as "tough" guy -- or because they see political benefit in it -- or because it helps assuage their gnawing fear.. or whatever.

And there's a great risk that "intelligence" gathered by torture will be held with levels of confidence that aren't justified, and thereby corrupt, pollute and overwhelm legitimate intelligence, rendering it useless, and causing the wrong conclusions to be drawn -- and the wrong actions to be taken. (This is also true of putting too much confidence in any "intel" -- any "information" -- like, say, that from an unreliable "informant", or from someone who has an agenda, hidden or otherwise. Nb, also true of the unjustified upgrading of confidence levels.)

Interrogation isn't a simple business, and those who go looking to find something can normally find it, if only in their own minds -- and a host of false "admissions" and assertions. Indeed, being open-minded, perceptive and receptive is key to intel -- and to life in general.

More generally, acting "tough" stupidly (ignorantly, thoughtlessly, etc) in practice usually amounts to no more than acting extra-stupidly.