"Torture Doesn't Work"

[Alvecia]

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

Depending on the person, even if you somehow already know that they do in fact have the information you want without knowing what it is already, it might take quite a few goes to get the “right” information.

[The New California Republic]

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

Depending on the person, even if you somehow already know that they do in fact have the information you want without knowing what it is already, it might take quite a few goes to get the “right” information.

And even then the "right" information will be impossible to differentiate from the "wrong" information...

[Nucego]

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

Nonsense. The torturer won't know if you are telling the truth or not. The torturer doesn't have some magic window into the torture victim's soul so they can tell if they are lying or not...

And it doesn't exactly guarantee that you won't be tortured any longer even if you tell the truth. Torture tends to have low accountability and transparency by virtue of being torture and so excuses will be found to "extract some more" or "get retribution".

[Vistulange]

Care to provide citations for that claim?

I mean, everyone has a price or a breaking point. Sometimes it may require far less effort to get the information

Again, the point being debated here isn't whether or not a person will break under stress. If that is the purpose of torture, sure, it works. What we are debating here is whether or not torture is an effective means of gathering intelligence, compared to coercion or manipulation, for instance.

And for purposes of gathering intelligence, torture is inefficient, as it forces the torturer to sift through great amounts of bullshit to verify one iota of truth - if it even exists. It, essentially, has the same shortcoming of open source intelligence: Too much information.

Care to provide citations for that claim?

Well, off the top of my head, pretty much every effective operation of the Rhodesian Bush War involved torture to acquire information in some way, shape or form.

Also practically every single siege of a major city/castle during the Middle Ages.

Information is not the same thing as intelligence. What matters is how much of the information obtained was actionable, i.e. intelligence.

I'm not seeing any sources that the information obtained through torture was of help in achieving greater strategic success.

[Sougra]

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

There's an inherent problem there: How does the torturer know if what the person being tortured is true? They don't. Even if someone were to tell the truth, they may not believe it because it doesn't confirm their suspicions or that it detracts too much from what they think is going on. There's no way for someone to effectively tell lies from truth, and if you're torturing someone, you most likely don't have enough information to use traditional methods to use for interrogation and are desperate. So the person could easily just tell a lie that confirms your suspicions in order to make it stop, and you'll stop, because it makes sense. There's no reason to tell the truth if you know that a lie would work to make it stop. And there's no guarantee that the torturer wolill be able to discern what is true and what is not, or when to continue and when not to. If the Cia themselves, an organization that has repeatedly tortured people for information, claims that it isn't effective, then why would you claim that you know better than the people who've used and studied those methods?

[Azadistan-land of the free]

I mean, everyone has a price or a breaking point. Sometimes it may require far less effort to get the information

Again, the point being debated here isn't whether or not a person will break under stress. If that is the purpose of torture, sure, it works. What we are debating here is whether or not torture is an effective means of gathering intelligence, compared to coercion or manipulation, for instance.

And for purposes of gathering intelligence, torture is inefficient, as it forces the torturer to sift through great amounts of bullshit to verify one iota of truth - if it even exists. It, essentially, has the same shortcoming of open source intelligence: Too much information.

Well, off the top of my head, pretty much every effective operation of the Rhodesian Bush War involved torture to acquire information in some way, shape or form.

Also practically every single siege of a major city/castle during the Middle Ages.

Information is not the same thing as intelligence. What matters is how much of the information obtained was actionable, i.e. intelligence.

I'm not seeing any sources that the information obtained through torture was of help in achieving greater strategic success.

I am not sure that is true(I know he is the exception rather than the rule but did Saladin use torture?) Also I dont think thats true because torture was mostly committed against commoners not people who would have what we would call a security clearance and because torture would follow a siege not proceed it (as all the people worth torturing would be in the castle), also I will look up the Rhodesian Bush War.

[Canadensia]

Well, off the top of my head, pretty much every effective operation of the Rhodesian Bush War involved torture to acquire information in some way, shape or form.

Also practically every single siege of a major city/castle during the Middle Ages.

Information is not the same thing as intelligence. What matters is how much of the information obtained was actionable, i.e. intelligence.

I'm not seeing any sources that the information obtained through torture was of help in achieving greater strategic success.

If you want to strategic success through torture, you won't find any. It's pretty much categorically limited to tactical utility.

Torture is occasionally useful for individual sieges, battles, counter-terror ops and the like. Not for gaining some massive strategic advantage in a war or anti-terror campaign.

[Vistulange]

Information is not the same thing as intelligence. What matters is how much of the information obtained was actionable, i.e. intelligence.

I'm not seeing any sources that the information obtained through torture was of help in achieving greater strategic success.

If you want to strategic success through torture, you won't find any. It's pretty much categorically limited to tactical utility.

Torture is occasionally useful for individual sieges, battles, counter-terror ops and the like. Not for gaining some massive strategic advantage in a war or anti-terror campaign.

It's good that you mentioned anti-terror, because that's what's relevant today, as opposed to sieges or wars.

Any verified successes of torture in combating terror, for example?

[Vassenor]

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

Torture does not magically make people spout truths.

[Xmara]

The reason it doesn't work is because the tortured person will say literally anything, even outright lies, to get the torture to stop. [/thread

This, pretty much. When a person breaks, they are not guaranteed to be telling the truth as much as saying what they think you want to hear.

Yep.

And then there are those cases where the person is innocent and knows nothing but can’t prove it. Which means constantly having to endure torture until the torturer finally gives up (which could be never), or confessing to something they had no part in (which could mean death or a lifetime in prison). It’s a lose-lose.

[Vistulange]

The reason it doesn't work is because the tortured person will say literally anything, even outright lies, to get the torture to stop. [/thread

Precisely.

So they ask "when is the next attack going to be?" while torturing you. You try to lie for a while but eventually you can't hold out so you tell them. They, having no way to verify the truth yet, continue to torture you. You continue to give various answers.

July 17
March 8
September 27
April 1
December 2
January 22
June 5
July 4
August 18
February 29

Which one is right? They can only dedicate resources to one. At this point the CIA is just guessing while torturing some asshole. Oh and here's a twist: the guy genuinely doesn't know. Boom. Turns out it was on july 11th.

This summarizes the whole problem quite well, really. The amount of outright falsehoods you'll get far outweighs the actionable information.

[Thermodolia]

You can't be tortured indefinitely, but you won't be tortured indefinitely.

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk"

Or you don’t. And you die defiant.

If I’m ever captured and tortured I know that I’m not going to make it out alive. I’m not going to get rescued and they aren’t going to let me go free. So the only options I have are either tell them everything after which they will kill me, or that the very least keep me prisoner, or I tell them nothing and goade them into killing me.

I’m not going to ever betray my nation or my beliefs.

[The Parkus Empire]

But how many controlled experiments have researchers done to actually verify if this common trope is true? And if the answer is > 0, I assume they were immediately arrested and put on trial after?

Also, how does this parable change if the information can be immediately, or very quickly verified, and there is a non trivial threat of more/worse torture if the info is verified false?

Not entirely sure if I actually read this somewhere or not, but wasn't information extracted through torture by the CIA proven to be effectively useless?

Although, speaking from experience, waterboarding isn't THAT bad if you know they're not actually going to kill you.

Not true, we learned Iraq had WMD's through torture.

[Deltanium]

It does. If the person has tortured others, publicly humiliate him/her or beat the hell out of them.

[Canadensia]

If you want to strategic success through torture, you won't find any. It's pretty much categorically limited to tactical utility.

Torture is occasionally useful for individual sieges, battles, counter-terror ops and the like. Not for gaining some massive strategic advantage in a war or anti-terror campaign.

It's good that you mentioned anti-terror, because that's what's relevant today, as opposed to sieges or wars.

Any verified successes of torture in combating terror, for example?

That's not exactly easily accessible information, for fairly obvious reasons.

Regardless, it was used multiple times by the British against the IRA. Evidently with enough success that they felt the need to create a list of protocols specifically regarding how to resist torture techniques.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(IRA)#Interrogation_techniques

[Estanglia]

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

1) Torture does not make people immediately tell the truth, nor is there a way to verify the information. If you can verify it, then the torture is pointless.
2) If the person does not know any info, and the torturer thinks they do, they'll be tortured until they lie to the torturer (that, again, can't be verified).
3) The same thing with 2) would happen to anyone who is innocent.
4) If the truth is unsatisfactory to the torturer (i.e. he doesn't believe it), the victim will still be tortured, so telling the truth is pointless.
5) The true information provided, if verified (somehow), might no longer be useful if the plans are changed or the attack etc. is carried out. A captured person with info gets progressively less useful over time as the plans might be changed, the information might be discovered another way or not be relevant or the plan the info is about may be carried out.

[Alvecia]

Depending on the person, even if you somehow already know that they do in fact have the information you want without knowing what it is already, it might take quite a few goes to get the “right” information.

And even then the "right" information will be impossible to differentiate from the "wrong" information...

Precisely. Each bit of information given needs to be verified.
In some situations, that’s simply not feasible.

[Vistulange]

It's good that you mentioned anti-terror, because that's what's relevant today, as opposed to sieges or wars.

Any verified successes of torture in combating terror, for example?

That's not exactly easily accessible information, for fairly obvious reasons.

Regardless, it was used multiple times by the British against the IRA. Evidently with enough success that they felt the need to create a list of protocols specifically regarding how to resist torture techniques.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(IRA)#Interrogation_techniques

Says nothing about critical information being exposed, really. Just that captured members would have to resist physical and psychological torture.

Furthermore, the final sentence - which has no citation - says "[m]ost likely this was a result of experience gained throughout the 1970s and during the Border Campaign when arrest and imprisonment of IRA/PIRA volunteers seriously impacted the operational effectiveness of the respective organizations". Assuming that this is true, the whole problem wasn't the captured IRA members divulging critical information which was then exploited by the British Army, but instead that their fighters were being eliminated.

Again, if the purpose of torture is to eliminate an enemy, sure, it works. But I still haven't seen anything that points to torture working in the context of gathering intelligence.

[Estanglia]

It does. If the person has tortured others, publicly humiliate him/her or beat the hell out of them.

So, you're arguing for torture based on retribution? Because there are many flaws with that.
If you're not, sorry. Your post makes it seem like that.

[Xmara]

Although, speaking from experience, waterboarding isn't THAT bad if you know they're not actually going to kill you.

???

[Canadensia]

That's not exactly easily accessible information, for fairly obvious reasons.

Regardless, it was used multiple times by the British against the IRA. Evidently with enough success that they felt the need to create a list of protocols specifically regarding how to resist torture techniques.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(IRA)#Interrogation_techniques

Says nothing about critical information being exposed, really. Just that captured members would have to resist physical and psychological torture.

Furthermore, the final sentence - which has no citation - says "[m]ost likely this was a result of experience gained throughout the 1970s and during the Border Campaign when arrest and imprisonment of IRA/PIRA volunteers seriously impacted the operational effectiveness of the respective organizations". Assuming that this is true, the whole problem wasn't the captured IRA members divulging critical information which was then exploited by the British Army, but instead that their fighters were being eliminated.

Again, if the purpose of torture is to eliminate an enemy, sure, it works. But I still haven't seen anything that points to torture working in the context of gathering intelligence.

It was affecting their operations because captives were divulging the names of other IRA members, hence the need to establish protocols for how to deal with torture. Divulging the names of other terrorists, who are subsequently detained, is a form of intel.

[Salandriagado]

they tell you whatever they think will make the pain stop, true or otherwise. You get confirmation of whatever you thought before the torture, true or not.

But how many controlled experiments have researchers done to actually verify if this common trope is true? And if the answer is > 0, I assume they were immediately arrested and put on trial after?

Lots.

Also, how does this parable change if the information can be immediately, or very quickly verified, and there is a non trivial threat of more/worse torture if the info is verified false?

If you can instantly verify it, you can also find it instantly. If it's not instant, you get a break from being tortured, and people who are being tortured are not exactly good at long-term planning.

[Vistulange]

Says nothing about critical information being exposed, really. Just that captured members would have to resist physical and psychological torture.

Furthermore, the final sentence - which has no citation - says "[m]ost likely this was a result of experience gained throughout the 1970s and during the Border Campaign when arrest and imprisonment of IRA/PIRA volunteers seriously impacted the operational effectiveness of the respective organizations". Assuming that this is true, the whole problem wasn't the captured IRA members divulging critical information which was then exploited by the British Army, but instead that their fighters were being eliminated.

Again, if the purpose of torture is to eliminate an enemy, sure, it works. But I still haven't seen anything that points to torture working in the context of gathering intelligence.

It was affecting their operations because captives were divulging the names of other IRA members, hence the need to establish protocols for how to deal with torture. Divulging the names of other terrorists, who are subsequently detained, is a form of intel.

Please tell me where it says that, instead of me taking your word for it?

[Salandriagado]

You can't be tortured indefinitely, but you won't be tortured indefinitely.

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk"

"Talk" does not mean "tell the truth". It means "say whatever will make the pain stop". Those are not the same thing.

[Canadensia]

It was affecting their operations because captives were divulging the names of other IRA members, hence the need to establish protocols for how to deal with torture. Divulging the names of other terrorists, who are subsequently detained, is a form of intel.

Please tell me where it says that, instead of me taking your word for it?

I don't have a copy of the book, so I can't really say.

Regardless, I don't see how the cited sentence, specifically indicating that arrests occurred en masse, can be interpreted as meaning anything other than that names were being divulged.