"Torture Doesn't Work"

[Coolao]

The C.I.A's torture methods were ineffective because the methods they used were fairly minor. More extreme methods are successful; however, it's a line that the United States does not [publically] cross.

[Jebslund]

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.

Which we then learned, by putting boots on the ground, was false. Depending on which version of events you believe, either we knew they didn't have them and used it as an excuse, or we were lied to because we already believed they did, and any answer but, "Yes, Saddam has WMDs" was discarded as a lie.

[Salandriagado]

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.

Or option C: tell them utter bullshit. All of the benefits of the other two options, plus the bonus that if they act on your information, they'll weaken their position, and therefore help your side.

[Vistulange]

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.

No, it can be interpreted as a ton of other things, such as their fighters being removed from the field, thereby preventing them from gathering intelligence themselves, or planting explosives, or performing other attacks. Not necessarily that names were being divulged.

I'm asking you for something very simple here: Sources that indicate that torture worked as a means for the British Army to gather intelligence, eventually culminating in the end of the Troubles with the Good Friday Agreement.

More extreme methods are successful

[citation needed]

[Petrasylvania]

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.

I bet you weren't trying to be ironic there.

[San Lumen]

Torture is wrong and unethical and should never be condoned. If you can't get someone to tell you something without hurting them you are not a good interrogator and have no business being in that position.

[Salandriagado]

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.

Except that said captives were also divulging the names of people who had nothing to do with the IRA. Might as well just round people up off the street at random.

[Jebslund]

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)

Your premise is flawed. You assume telling the truth is the only way to make the torture stop. It's not. The victim simply needs to tell the torturer what he or she wants to hear. If the torturer knew what the victim knows, he or she wouldn't be torturing them. So the victim spins a tale based on what is being asked. One that won't be easy to debunk. By the time the story is checked out and proven false, either the criminals have changed plans or the attack/crime has already happened.

We like to think of LEOs and the CIA as being infallible lie detectors, but, the truth of the matter is that humans are disgustingly easy to lie to. They believe that anything easy to accept must be true, and anything difficult to accept must be false. After all, if it were true, it would be easy to see it as true, right? And lie detectors are useless during torture, as they rely on measuring stress levels, which would, naturally, already be shooting through the roof during torture. All of that, by the way, doesn't even factor in situations where the truth is hard to believe, leading it to be dismissed as lies, which means even a criminal who has cracked and told everything they know isn't necessarily going to be believed, and the information may never be acted upon. Then there's the possibility that a suspect who cracks too soon may be suspected of applying the above strategy and tortured until they come up with something more believable at a "more appropriate" time.

[Estanglia]

The C.I.A's torture methods were ineffective because the methods they used were fairly minor. More extreme methods are successful; however, it's a line that the United States does not [publically] cross.

Any proof that the extreme methods work?

---

On another note:
I think the best way to interrogate a person is to befriend them. Make them trust you, or if that fails, put them with someone they trust (like two previous posters pointed out). If you can convince them that nothing bad will happen if they give up information, they'll probably give it up, even unintentionally (e.g. telling you the name of their commanding officer whilst telling you a story, so you can now better identify him etc.).

[Infected Mushroom]

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...

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

[Estanglia]

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

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

In order to verify the evidence, you need to know what it is, making the torture pointless. We've constantly pointed that out.
Also, to verify by other means would be incredibly time consuming, and by then the information might be redundant, wasting your time. If the victim even knew about it in the first place and told you.

[Infected Mushroom]

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

In order to verify the evidence, you need to know what it is, making the torture pointless. We've constantly pointed that out.

you find out what it is based on information you extract from the interrogation

then you verify as a form of confirmation

[Jebslund]

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

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

The problem with verifying a story is that, if you have the means to immediately do so, you'd already be doing it. Otherwise, you're looking at hours, possibly even days, months, or YEARS of wasted manpower barking up the wrong tree in a situation where your prisoner is only useful for a limited amount of time, a problem the CIA frequently ran into. It's not a matter of the leads being impossible to track down. It's a matter of the leads needing to be believed first, then needing to be tracked down, the latter part of which takes far more time than Hollywood lets on. During that time, if the victim of torture lied, you're wasting valuable time tracking down a false lead, even more because the lie was something you wanted to believe, while the other side adjusts plans based on that guy with important info who hasn't checked in in a while, or even carried out the attack you were hoping to stop.

[Vistulange]

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

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

Well, yes. There is no way to confirm any evidence 100%.

The first lesson in intelligence disciplines is that you can never be 100% sure. It's the nature of the business. Inherently, intelligence is working with imperfect information. What makes certain methods better than others is their capacity to come closer to providing real, actionable information amongst the clutter and noise.

[Estanglia]

In order to verify the evidence, you need to know what it is, making the torture pointless. We've constantly pointed that out.

you find out what it is based on information you extract from the interrogation

How can you trust that? Another thing we've pointed out: people will say anything to escape torture, even lies.

[Infected Mushroom]

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

The problem with verifying a story is that, if you have the means to immediately do so, you'd already be doing it. Otherwise, you're looking at hours, possibly even days, of wasted manpower barking up the wrong tree in a situation where your prisoner is only useful for a limited amount of time, a problem the CIA frequently ran into. It's not a matter of the leads being impossible to track down. It's a matter of the leads needing to be believed first, then needing to be tracked down, the latter part of which takes far more time than Hollywood lets on. During that time, if the victim of torture lied, you're wasting valuable time tracking down a false lead, even more because the lie was something you wanted to believe, while the other side adjusts plans based on that guy with important info who hasn't checked in in a while, or even carried out the attack you were hoping to stop.

you're verifying based on the information that has been extracted

for instance, if there are 130 possible bomb locations... you can get a specific location from the person and then go from there; much more feasible than just sending people to 130 locations assuming you don't have the resources

[The New California Republic]

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

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

There are limits to what information can be verified. Scenario: The torturer wants to know what I have been doing in the last few days. I tell him I went for some walks down a country lane. I actually read a banned book in the garden. Nobody has seen me, so nobody can verify either as being fact. How will the torturer know if I am lying or telling the truth?

So again, you think that the torturer not only has a window into the torture victim's soul to see if they are lying, but they have an all-seeing eye too(!)

[Infected Mushroom]

you find out what it is based on information you extract from the interrogation

How can you trust that? Another thing we've pointed out: people will say anything to escape torture, even lies.

because they won't escape the torture if they tell a lie so it makes more sense for them to tell the truth... they know that you'd come back to torture them again if they try to feed lies, hence there's no incentive to lie when they could tell the truth (they might do it once or twice to spite you if they are really brave but there's a general disincentive against doing so)... when people are tortured, they need to believe that telling the truth will make it stop (they're being conditioned to think that)

[Estanglia]

The problem with verifying a story is that, if you have the means to immediately do so, you'd already be doing it. Otherwise, you're looking at hours, possibly even days, of wasted manpower barking up the wrong tree in a situation where your prisoner is only useful for a limited amount of time, a problem the CIA frequently ran into. It's not a matter of the leads being impossible to track down. It's a matter of the leads needing to be believed first, then needing to be tracked down, the latter part of which takes far more time than Hollywood lets on. During that time, if the victim of torture lied, you're wasting valuable time tracking down a false lead, even more because the lie was something you wanted to believe, while the other side adjusts plans based on that guy with important info who hasn't checked in in a while, or even carried out the attack you were hoping to stop.

you're verifying based on the information that has been extracted

for instance, if there are 130 possible bomb locations... you can get a specific location from the person and then go from there; much more feasible than just sending people to 130 locations assuming you don't have the resources

One problem: They can lie AND not tell you the truth. Or you might not believe the truth.

[USS Monitor]

The problem isn't that people resist and refuse to talk. It's that they will say anything, regardless of whether it's actually true, to make the pain stop and it is then really difficult to sift the accurate info (if there is any) out from the bullshit.

[Vistulange]

How can you trust that? Another thing we've pointed out: people will say anything to escape torture, even lies.

because they won't escape the torture if they tell a lie so it makes more sense for them to tell the truth... they know that you'd come back to torture them again if they try to feed lies, hence there's no incentive to lie when they could tell the truth (they might do it once or twice to spite you if they are really brave but there's a general disincentive against doing so)... when people are tortured, they need to believe that telling the truth will make it stop (they're being conditioned to think that)

And what if the tortured actually doesn't know the truth in the first place?

[Kowani]

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

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

You may (eventually) get some true information, yes. However between the amount of BS someone can spit out, telling the torturer what they want to hear (regardless of its veracity) and the pleading and begging for them to stop, anything you get will either be outdated or useless by the time you get it. Plus, nobody has infinite resources. Investigating all those fake leads takes time, money and people. And if you need to torture someone, time is usually in short supply.

[Estanglia]

How can you trust that? Another thing we've pointed out: people will say anything to escape torture, even lies.

because they won't escape the torture if they tell a lie so it makes more sense for them to tell the truth... they know that you'd come back to torture them again if they try to feed lies, hence there's no incentive to lie when they could tell the truth (they might do it once or twice to spite you if they are really brave but there's a general disincentive against doing so)... when people are tortured, they need to believe that telling the truth will make it stop (they're being conditioned to think that)

Again, it requires you knowing the info beforehand, making the torture pointless. And again, they can tell you the truth and not be believed, or simply not know.

[Infected Mushroom]

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

There are limits to what information can be verified. Scenario: The torturer wants to know what I have been doing in the last few days. I tell him I went for some walks down a country lane. I actually read a banned book in the garden. Nobody has seen me, so nobody can verify either as being fact. How will the torturer know if I am lying or telling the truth?

So again, you think that the torturer not only has a window into the torture victim's soul to see if they are lying, but they have an all-seeing eye too(!)

that isn't really the sort of information you want to extract from torture... that's entering the Confessions territory concerning a specific past action

it should instead be used for information that has future ramifications and can be verified

[The New California Republic]

The problem isn't that people resist and refuse to talk. It's that they will say anything, regardless of whether it's actually true, to make the pain stop and it is then really difficult to sift the accurate info (if there is any) out from the bullshit.

Exactly. Truth and lie can become so interwoven during torture that it becomes impossible to tell one from the other.