Info gained from torture is NOT reliable. That's the point of it all.

So it has been proven that torture does not produce reliable information. It makes sense then, if you need to verify your version of reality or sell your perspective of things to the masses that torture may be just the thing. Think about it, torture the person until they say, hell yes, that's exactly what happened, or okay I give up, you're right, that's how it happened or whatever words they use to agree with whoever is torturing them.

This evil Administration is not looking for accurate info, or reliable info they are only looking to stir up animosity and back up their need for war and since that's where they are coming from, since that's their motive, torture works just fine; hell, it may even be necessary to give credence to their lies.

Well done!

Witch hunters, Nazis, Stalinists, Maoists, and all sorts of other sadistic authorities used to trot out barely cleaned up torture victims (often peripheral figures in whatever "conspiracy" the authorties were trying to uncover) to "testify" that the real target of their wrath was indeed a witch, a Jew, a bourgeois lackey, or a running dog of capitalism.

The other purpose of torture is to intimidate the population as a whole.

In the Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn writes that when the KGB came in the middle of the night to pick someone up, the neighbors almost always waited silently and didn't intervene--probably because they KNEW what happened to anyone whom the KGB took away. He wonders what would have happened if every attempted KGB arrest had been met with angry neighbors wielding frying pans and pieces of furniture.

(Side comment: Since reading that passage, I have always nodded and smiled to myself when I read about an arrest in a minority neighborhood that brings out protesting neighbors. Good for them, I think. Whether the person arrested is guilty or not, the neighbors are there as witnesses and advocates.)

had come out fighting with frying pans and furniture. Thanks for your post.

the human race has a common long term memory of its history and accumulated knowledge - of what works and what doesn't. Overtime it keeps what works and discards what doesn't. That's what explains the efficacy of all fields of science - they are built on previous learning. We started by learning medicinal herbs and now do advanced surgery. We started with walking next door and now fly to the stars. I'm sure I don't need to belabor the point. It's just evolution - what works sticks around - what doesn't work disappears.

I can't think of an example of any society in any war/conflict that hasn't used torture as a primary technique of interrogation in order to get information from the enemy. I have trouble accepting the blanket statement "So it has been proven that torture does not produce reliable information." If it was such an unreliable technique, mankind as a whole would have rejected it as a technique to get information along time ago. I keep seeing most experts saying that and I understand the logic of the argument.

Now I accept that torture might be done just for sadistic purposes or as a terrorist technique by an occupying force to intimidate a population. And I reject its use on moral and ethical grounds - like I reject the death penalty on moral and ethical grounds.

BUT - it just don't make sense to me that the human race would use any behavior throughout it's whole history that plain doesn't work. Evolution says no.

T

no more than the enduring drive for dominance that exists in human nature. We are so surrounded by the dynamic of dominance that we barely notice it, but EVERYONE exhibits it to some degree or another.

Think of every petty bureaucratic functionary whom you've faced across a counter who is obviously taking a kind of perserve joy in making the conducting of your business as difficult as possible. Think of every jerk who's pushed in line ahead of you at the store. Think of the times in your own life when you've felt that surge of triumph at outdoing someone else at something.

Whatever its evolutionary function, the will to dominate is hard-wired in humanity to one degree or another. For many people, its expression is largely muted, and can be subsumed to the finer qualities of human nature; compassion, cooperation, love and nuturance, etc.

Toturing another human being is an ultimate dominance trip. It has nothing to do with effectiveness, it has to do with having absolute power over another.

I read an article recently -- and damn it all, I can't find it again, or remember where it was posted -- but it contained an excerpt of an interview with a torture victim. The interviewer asked the victim what kind of questions he was being asked and how much information he ended up disclosing. The victim's reply was that after awhile the torturers stopped asking him any questions at all because they were so caught up in the process of the torture itself.

Torture is NOT about effectiveness, it's about giving free rein to most toxic form of the human will to dominance.

sw

That is the saddest statement about humans I've ever read.

Cannibalism is effective at preventing hunger (sometimes). Human sacrifice brought a good harvest (or so it appeared). Beating the crap out of your wife might get her to wash the dishes (sometimes).

All of these things have been judged my society as uncivilized, as unacceptable behavior. It's taken a long time to get here, and McCain's "compromise" is not a compromise at all but a huge step backwards.

This reminds me of a story I remember reading in a German text book we used in my German class in high school.

As I remember it, the story goes that a man was brought before a judge for beating his wife. The judge admonished the man that he was supposed to share joy and sorrow with his wife.

This happened a couple of times, and then the man turned to throwing dishes at his wife. He was again brought before the judge, and the judge again admonished the man that he was supposed to share joy and sorrow with his wife.

The man replied "I do. When I throw a dish at my wife and it hits her, it is my joy and her sorrow. When I throw a dish at her and it misses, it is her joy and my sorrow."

you cannot defeat your enemy if you lower yourself to his level. Technically maybe, but tou lose in the end. All torture regimes in the XXth century have lost or been isolated. Oh yes they have "won" wars under a certain period of time, but then collapsed under their own internal failures. Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain, Chile, Argentina, The Greek Junta are good examples of that.

One day Bush will be hold accountable like Pinochet. And the people who supported him particularly on the torture subject, even if they come from different political horizons, will be ostracized.

was only too happy to provide. No fuss, no muss.

The "big fish" like Khalid Shaykh Mohammed usually don't break under torture. Terrorist organizations realize that their people may get caught, and resisting torture is part of their training. And not just "torture lite" like the Americans do it. I mean torture like the Israelis, the Syrians, the Egyptians, etc. do it. Jack Bauer has nothing on these guys. So, the leaders are taught to resist all kinds of torture. The "little fish" (i.e. Jose Padilla) don't know much, so whatever they give you under duress is suspect.

of Saddam to make him reveal where the WMD's are. Sure.

enough reason not to torture even if it worked, which it doesn't.

Forget the Spanish Inquisition, this is the century of the American Inquisition.

knows it's happening. It's about suppressing dissent and that's all it's for.

Working pretty well, so far.

All trained interrogation professionals know this. Regimes that torture only do this to terrify their political enemies and stifle the slightest sign of opposition. It makes the rest of the population reluctant to associate with anyone who expresses the least bit of dissent.

The point is NOT to gain intelligence of any value - its merely to intimidate. The more innocents who get tortured, the more effective the intimidation.

Its not only immoral but counterproductive as well because the suppressed hatred will linger for generations.

In that way it works very well.

Just as bombing a country with oil supplies is a win for the oil companies when they make mega profits.

Keeping torture in the news on a daily basis is a winning tool, or as Bush has put it "our most potent tool" - it keeps the people of the U.S. intimidated and even more so when Bush is able to pardon himself retroactively from having done it for the duration of his administration.

The message to the people is don't put anything past him, he is showing that he is above the law.