Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Washington Post has an article about the waterboarding and abuse of Abu Zubaida, who was allegedly a high-ranking Al Qaeda leader. The torture of the man produced nothing useful at all:
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Worse yet, they ignored evidence that he was not who they thought he was and kept on abusing him anyway:
Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a "fixer" for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with al-Qaeda only after Sept. 11 -- and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan.
This is one of the main problems with such interrogations and it has nothing to do with those famous "ticking timebomb" scenarios we hear so much about. They're convinced they have a high value target in detention but in fact he's just a low level flunkie who has little to tell him. So when he doesn't give them useful information, they're convinced they have to torture him to get the information they're sure he has.
And even after they torture him and he tells them everything he thinks they want to hear to make them stop, and even after they waste time and resources chasing all the false leads he gives them, they never think to question their own assumptions either for that person or for others. Even after the failure of their first instance of torture, they continued to approve others.
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The other "main problem" with such interrogations, is the sheer amount of fake-macho ignoramuses who tend to support such policies, in both the military and the civilian sectors. They think they're tough, they think thinking is for pussies, and they compensate for their ignorance and irrelevance by strutting around and pretending everyone who questions them is just too weak and cowardly to face the truth and do what must be done like real men did in ancient times when courts didn't coddle criminals and terrists. And once they've taken the side of the torturers, they can never bring themselves to admit that they might have made a mistake, or that they might be able to learn something from people with less muscle tissue and swagger than themselves.
Torture is like slavery: the original evil attracts even more different kinds of evil until you have a solid and immovable mass of interlocking, mutually-supporting evilness.
Posted by: Raging Bee | March 31, 2009 9:44 AM
Faith based interrogation.
Posted by: MH | March 31, 2009 9:55 AM
MH: Nice turn of phrase.
Posted by: chancelikely | March 31, 2009 10:31 AM
I believe the quotes also show a fundamental problem with the way the administration perceive the radical muslim world. The use of phrases like 'chief of operations' and 'official member of al-Qaeda' indicates that they think of Al Qaeda as a hierarchical military organization. When it's really just an amorphous body of like minded individuals.
And WTF is an 'official member of al-Qaeda' anyway? Are they issuing membership cards now?
Posted by: NoAstronomer | March 31, 2009 11:06 AM
Raging Bee: Exactly; couldn't have said it better myself.
NoAstronomer: I hate this about the way Western governments approach Al-Qaeda as well. They treat it like its some vast, underground, Bond-like criminal conspiracy, when in reality its a handful of financiers and veteran jihadist who provide money, training, branding, and minor logistical support to likely recruits sent to them down the radicalist pipeline. Whenever people talk about how Al-Qaeda planned Sept. 11th its particularly glaring. Did Bin Laden want to carry out a plane attack on the WTC? Yes. Did he instigate it? No. Some of the men who carried it out had trained in the Afghan camps, and when they came up with the plan they turned to Al-Qaeda to fund it. The terrorist underworld, much like the criminal underworld, is rarely as organized as people like to imagine.
As to Zabaida, I am unsurprised. I, and every other honest person following this travesty, has been predicted just such a revelation for years now. Torture is punishment, not inquiry.
Posted by: Julian | March 31, 2009 11:37 AM
Of COURSE they issue membership cards. Just like all those "card-carrying Communists" did back in the '50s...
Posted by: Raging Bee | March 31, 2009 11:53 AM
I think this really exposes the perverse incentives involved in torture. A torture subjects primary objective is to get you to stop torturing them. That leads them to tell you whatever it is that will get you stop, and that isn't necessarily correlated with the truth. If Abu Zubaida said he was barely associated with Al-Qaeda (which he almost certainly did) they would just assume he was lying and torture him more. If he lies and acts like a high-level officer then they leave him alone and follow a bunch of false leads. There's a built in bias that leads to a positive feedback of bad intelligence.
Posted by: penn | March 31, 2009 12:19 PM
Wait a doggone minute.
The CIA misidentifies a source, tortures him, breaks him down, and he spills his guts:
"The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads."
and this is supposed to repudiate the efficacy of torture?
Seems to me that torture gets an A+ and the CIA gets a D- for not knowing who they had, and then refusing to correct their misjudgement when better information came in. Of course, it also sounds like Bush and Cheney were not helping matters either.
But the torture was absolutely yummy and delicious.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | March 31, 2009 12:41 PM
Reminds me of the scene from Goldfinger where James Bond is strapped down to the table--while a laser creeps slowly towards his junk--and he says something along the lines of "I suppose you expect me to tell you "x"?" and Goldfinger says, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" And, it's almost as believable as the nonsense about obtaining high grade intelligence from the Gitmoese.
Posted by: democommie | March 31, 2009 12:53 PM
Is there any evidence that torture actually works? I recall a new scientist interview a couple of years ago with someone who has been investigating torture for years and has plenty of evidence to show that it doesn't.
Posted by: guthrie | March 31, 2009 1:01 PM
"Is there any evidence that torture actually works? I recall a new scientist interview a couple of years ago with someone who has been investigating torture for years and has plenty of evidence to show that it doesn't."
It doesn't work - except when it does.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | March 31, 2009 1:12 PM
Umm, yes. Torture works at breaking people. That is not in question. You can get anybody to say anything if you torture them long enough. Unfortunately, that is exactly why torture doesn't work for intelligence gathering.
Posted by: konrad_arflane | March 31, 2009 1:26 PM
Following the Korean War, US prisoners of war captured by the Chinese described in detail the techniques used by the Communists to elicit false testimony (e.g., use of biological weapons). As a result, the armed forces developed a program to resist such interrogation. At the behest of someone (probably Cheney) the “harsh interrogation” techniques that were used to produce false confessions from downed US airmen were copied from this program. In other words, the basis for the use of these techniques was flawed from Jump Street: the techniques were known to produce nonsense.
I agree with Raging Bee. This has Cheney written all over it. I don’t know of anyone but a smug, psychopathic sadist who would support this, except maybe someone who shoots 80 – 100 doves and ducks per day in a canned hunt. There is hunting for what you can reasonably clean and eat, and then there is killing for the sake of killing.
That sort of individual would be entirely capable of rationalizing such lawless and ultimately futile torture.
Posted by: NJOsprey | March 31, 2009 1:27 PM
Did you not read or properly understand the article, Gingerbaker?
YES this repudiates the efficacy of torture! The suspect gave false information while tortured.
In what way does this NOT repudiate the efficacy of torture?
Posted by: raymondmarble | March 31, 2009 1:36 PM
konrad said:
"Torture works at breaking people. That is not in question. You can get anybody to say anything if you torture them long enough. Unfortunately, that is exactly why torture doesn't work for intelligence gathering."
That is why torturers don't expect a single session to necessarily produce anything reliable, and why they then act on the info given to confirm whether the wretch in the cell is telling the truth.
Why do you think soldiers are not given battle strategies by their commanders?
And that is why torturers have been torturing for thousands upon thousands of years - it does produce results that are useful amidst all the falsities.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | March 31, 2009 1:43 PM
Just simply "Do you expect me to talk?", in a stern voice.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 31, 2009 1:54 PM
A magic 8-ball will produce true responses amidst all the falsities too, but without the human rights abuses.
Posted by: DaveL | March 31, 2009 2:02 PM
Because it's irrelevant, confusing information?
Because they might blab it accidentally?
Because they might blab it on purpose?
Because they might sell it?
Posted by: Dave S. | March 31, 2009 2:02 PM
Wow. What an interesting blockquote fail.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 31, 2009 2:05 PM
"And that is why torturers have been torturing for thousands upon thousands of years - it does produce results that are useful amidst all the falsities."
Yes it does produce results that would be useful. That is they would be useful if you could separate them from the much larger volume of falsities. Sure you could act on all the information. But with that kind of signal to noise ratio you will be wasting vast amounts of resources.
Torture is a resource expensive, politically dangerous, morally reprehensible method that gives very poor results and pisses off the other side so that they respond in kind.
And torture has been used for thousands of years mostly because it was viewed as great entertainment. Jesus himself would have talked only nobody gave a shit what he had to say.
Posted by: ppnl | March 31, 2009 2:08 PM
raymondmarble said:
No, the article said that he gave good as well as bad information. This is to be expected.
The problem here is that the government thought this guy knew more than he did, despite information to the contrary, and then (likely because of Cheney) continued flogging a dead horse (sorry).
Evidently, Abu Zubaida told them everything he knew - and then a whole lot more. I grant you that the story demonstrates what is wrong with using torture as well, and is particularly distressing about what it implies about the actions from the White House itself, but I don't see how that refutes the proposition that torture can be efficacious.
I am not a fan of torture. I do think that the doomsday scenario - as unlikely as that may be - justifies it, however. But, I think torture demeans humanity, and should be a crime for any scenario outside that scenario.
That said, I don't think the argument that torture is never useful or productive is honest, and I don't think that the promulgation of that (false) argument advances the proposition that torture is a war crime that should be prosecuted.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | March 31, 2009 2:11 PM
David said:
"And that's why people have been trusting astrology, Rasashastra Ayurveda (the one with the lead and mercury oxides by the spoonful), and so on and so forth for thousands upon thousands of years – they keep believing it produces results that are useful amidst all the falsities.
Now, reading the Daily Horoscopes is excruciating, but its not really that bad, is it?
"Hey, sure, not every single torture subject gets the idea that they could lie under torture. But they all can, and you can't tell which ones do it, unless you follow the alleged leads and find out all by yourself if they're true; that makes the whole concept useless."
No, it makes the actual process a pain in the ass, and time and personnel intensive, but it is not useless. The truth often outs.
Seriously, if it was completely and utterly useless, do you think the practice would continue today? Or do you think it it is more likely that it sometimes might be useful? Don't answer in less than five seconds.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | March 31, 2009 2:22 PM
"I do think that the doomsday scenario - as unlikely as that may be - justifies it, however." -- Gingerbaker
Unless of course you've got someone who doesn't know where the bomb is. Then you spend all your time running down false leads when you could be doing something productive.
Posted by: Philip | March 31, 2009 2:34 PM
Torture is not as effective as other means of extracting information. It doesn't produce reliable information, the only time it's reliable is when you can check it versus outside sources. Making it worthless for the "doomsday" scenario.
Posted by: Laen | March 31, 2009 2:41 PM
Doesn't matter. If you've got someone who does know where the bomb is, you still spend all your time running down false leads – if the guy gets the idea that he can lie.
Doesn't the doomsday scenario include it being a time bomb? The terrorist just needs to make sure chasing down the false lead takes longer than it takes till the bomb goes off.
Of fucking course, yes! Out of sheer tradition; because it seems logical; for intimidation of the enemy; and so on.
Who knows? Who knows when he got the idea of making stuff up?
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 31, 2009 2:51 PM
As was pointed out with the Korean war example: Torture is very effective. That is, if your goal is to manufacture results in the form of false confessions from your "enemies." One then can carry out show trials that help justify your actions to your populace. Stalin was a master of this art, and the Bush administration could have done so much better if it were not for all those pesky human rights advocates.
Posted by: Edward | March 31, 2009 3:26 PM
But the real standard is its usefulness in comparison to other methods. And as just about every experienced investigator will tell us, there are other methods that do a better job of extracting accurate information with less false information.
Even accepting the argument that torture isn't completely useless, why use what is evidently an inferior method of interrogation? Why even bother to defend such an inferior method?
Posted by: James Hanley | March 31, 2009 3:37 PM
The problem with ok'ing the doomsday scenario is that, like most theoreticals, it involves human beings that act like human beings.
In the context of some things being okay for torture, it creates the incentive to expand the definition of whatever it is ok for. If it's okay for saving a city, what about a town. Well, then, how about a city block, or a house, or one person's life? Murder is a felony, so why not use it for other felonies?
That's a slippery slope argument, yes, but it's one humanity has gone down a lot. People rationalize--they have to when they're pulling another person's fingernails out. Or worse, they get to like it.
So the practice attracts those who are able to deal mentally with doing it, and when those people get frustrated, they will find reasons to stretch the limits.
And with torture, you always get what you want from the victim, thus proving that the limits were correctly stretched.
This is the feedback loop that makes torture both attractive and ineffective at procuring truth. And why it has been popular historically. And why it has been outlawed among those who like to call themselves civilized.
Unless you already know the truth, you can't tell if the victim is lying. If you already know, information gathering isn't the real point. It's simply terrorism on an individual level.
Posted by: Longstreet63 | March 31, 2009 3:47 PM
Torture is very effective, but not as a means of getting intelligence. This is, and always has been, a front. See here for details:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/26/acd.01.html
Torture is a form of terrorism, design to demoralize enemies. It is very good at this. Intelligence, not so much.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | March 31, 2009 4:10 PM
Jane Mayer reported this in The Dark Side.
When Zubayda was giving up information, he was being interrogated by FBI agents with extensive expereience with Islamic terrorism. Contrary to what the Post article seems to suggest, it was during this pre-torture phase of interrogation that Zubayda gave up Padilla, according to Mayer's account.
Those FBI agents were then replaced with SERE psychologist James MItchell who had no experience with interrogations or Islamic terrorism. According to Mayer's sources, Zubayda didn't merely give false information and what not, but was literally driven insane by his treatment.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | March 31, 2009 5:03 PM
Gingerbaker said:
Actually what the article said was that they army got the useful information before the waterboarding started, using interviews. So in fact the army stopped using a more effective technique of extracting information in order to start torturing. To my mind that makes the use of torture a threat to national security.
Posted by: eric | March 31, 2009 5:06 PM
Gingerbaker:
The problem here is that your statement is flatly contradicted by the article that you're basing it on. From the text Ed quoted:
(bolded emphasis added.)
So regular interrogation yielded good, usable intel and waterboarding yielded a load of desperate crap (with a few nuggets of useful intel embedded corn-like amidst all the crap.) They tortured the guy for practically nothing and could probably have had that last bit of data simply by sticking with methods that had already been proven to work.
You don't have to take my word for it, though; you can just look at the previous track record of the CIA in Vietnam.
Posted by: Martian Buddy | March 31, 2009 5:54 PM
Since we both agree that the doomsday scenario is very unlikely to ever actually occur, why not just put down a blanket ban on torture, and make any would-be torturer have to stand up and take responsibility for his or her own actions? If your reasoning is that, in the most extreme cases, it might be okay to break the law or violate someones human rights; then let them stand up in court and use any positive results of their torture as an affirmative defense, and hope that the judge or jury will look kindly on someone who's just saved the world from nuclear annihilation or whatever (which I find so likely as to be almost 100% certain). That way, if their acts of torture turn out to be just as useful as every other act of torture in the history of the world (~0% AFAICT), we can just convict them and send them right off to jail, without any kind of long and equally useless debate about their (alleged) good intentions.
If done this way, every single opponent of torture would be happy, and any kind of real-life Jack Bauer should be able to get off more or less scot-free as well, which should be enough to make you (and those who share your opinion) happy too.
Posted by: Kaerion | March 31, 2009 5:55 PM
Torture is a form of terrorism, design to demoralize enemies. It is very good at this. Intelligence, not so much.
It's also magnificently effective at terrorizing the population of the torturing nation, and stultifying potential dissent against its authorities.
Posted by: HCF | March 31, 2009 6:02 PM
eric said:
"Actually what the article said was that they army got the useful information before the waterboarding started, using interviews
The article also says that they got Padilla's name after the torture started. (Not that Padilla was a catch or what happened to him was justified in any way shape or form). And we can never know if he talked before the torture started because he didn't want to be tortured.
If one Googles this issue 99.5% of what is being published about it are articles with blanket statements that torture never works, can't work, and has no utility for anything but intimidation. It's a meme-fest and I call bullshit.
There ARE examples of torture working. And enough people know that it works so that credibility will be lost by denying that it does have a history of successful application.
The point is that it is reprehensible, a war crime, dehumanizing, difficult to control, ultimately counterproductive, and should only be used - if at all - under a very specific scenario. Those are the reasons it must be opposed - not some bullshit that it never works.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | March 31, 2009 6:04 PM
And they are vastly overshadowed by examples of torture NOT working, and non-torture interrogation techniques working far better.
Please try to pay attention. The assertion is not that torture NEVER works, it's that it's LESS effective than non-torture techniques, AND that it does not produce information that could not be obtained by other techniques. You have not even begun to counter that assertion, and so long as you stick to reality, you will continue to be unable to do so.
Posted by: Mithrandir | March 31, 2009 6:15 PM
And yet Gingerbaker has a valid point. Presumably the CIA knows all of the psychological evidence that shows the unreliability of torture as an intelligence gathering tool. And yet the CIA continues both to torture itself and to encourage torture by other willing regimes.
The only conclusion is that they learned something from all the torturing they sponsored the last 40-50 years, that it had some vale other than as intel. What could that be?
Posted by: kehrsam | March 31, 2009 6:24 PM
Re: kehrsam's question.
It's simple. Torture is good for getting confessions. And for getting "information" that confirms what you already believe (regardless of whether your belief is correct or not).
This makes it useful for an intelligence agency trying to convince outsiders. Or trying to "find" information that confirms the viewpoint of the big boss. Even (or more accurately especially) if that viewpoint is nonsense.
Posted by: Michael I | March 31, 2009 7:23 PM
kehrsam, You live in Europe, right? April 1st perhaps? A government agency doing something they know isn't the best way to do things??? Never!!!
Posted by: Robert S. | March 31, 2009 7:28 PM
Robert S.
Torture is a very effective way to collect "information" that confirms what you want to believe.
This is often a higher priority than collecting accurate information.
Posted by: Michael I | March 31, 2009 7:37 PM
With torture, the few genuine, accurate pieces of information gleaned in amongst the piles of out-and-out bullshit spouted by the person being tortured is usually only finally discovered as being genuine, accurate pieces of information because they happen to match other information gathered and verified completely independantly. This means that, if you had not tortured them, you would still have ended up with the same information.
Considering that, as this very story shows, a lot of effort is often wasted chasing down leads that aren't, can you please explain how torture is, in any way, useful?
Posted by: Smidgy | March 31, 2009 8:47 PM
Since Padilla wasn't a catch, as you note, this doesn't contradict what eric said above. Padilla's name, it turned out, was not useful information.
Posted by: Anton Mates | March 31, 2009 8:59 PM
And that is why torturers have been torturing for thousands upon thousands of years - it does produce results that are useful amidst all the falsities.
The problem here is, you'd need reliable, timely intel to separate the useful stuff from the falsehoods, and verify what your subject is telling you. And if you have that kind off reliable, timely intel, then why do you need to torture anyone? Seems to me you'd just be wasting a lot of time torturing someone until he says something that's corroborated by information you already have.
And there's still the question: even in those circumstances, is torture the MOST EFFECTIVE way to get useful information from suspected enemies? From what I've heard, from people who actually do interrogationfor a living, it's really not the most effective tool in their arsenal. The fake-macho ignoramuses I mentioned above THINK it is, because they don't understand subtler means of manipulating people.
Posted by: Raging Bee | March 31, 2009 9:35 PM
Posted by: James Hanley | March 31, 2009 9:42 PM
Torture works.
For example, in The Dark Side, Mayer also recounts that low level al Qaeda type al-Libi was another person being interrogated somewhat effectively by the FBI. He had told those agents there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
CIA agents seized him, told him they were going to send him to Egypt and f___ his mother. After he was tortured in Egypt, he said that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Which then subsequently became one of the major White House selling points for invading Iraq.
See, torture "works."
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | March 31, 2009 9:54 PM
I just checked. If you go to Google books you can find the specific passages from The Dark Side I'm alluding to by searching "FBI al-Libi" and "FBI Zubayda".
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | March 31, 2009 9:58 PM
Assuming the goal is to extract usable information with some measure of reliability, torture is a consistent failure, as this example shows. If you have the information needed to check out the veracity of what the guy you're torturing is telling you, you have no need to torture him in the first place, and if he's just making up what you want to hear, acting on that information is the single worst thing an anti-terrorism agency could possibly do.
Posted by: Azkyroth | March 31, 2009 10:36 PM
thanks for sharing.
Posted by: watch movies | March 31, 2009 10:55 PM
No.
Hope that clears things up.
Posted by: Brain Hertz | April 1, 2009 2:15 AM
Brain Hertz, let's be clear. Torture can work. Under very precise circumstances.
1. You have information.
2. You have someone who knows the information you are looking to confirm. Very important, you need to KNOW they have the information.
With those things as a starting point, yes, torture can be used to "get good information".
Of course you aren't getting new information, you are confirming information you already have. You also have to know, positively, that the person you are torturing has the information you need to confirm.
So if we use tactics, that when used against us were called war crimes, we can confirm information we already have, in a very inefficient way. Seems like a small price to pay to throw away what little respect we have left in the civilized world.
Wait, you aren't trying to look like hypocrites and barbarians to the rest of the world? Never mind then.
Posted by: Laen | April 1, 2009 3:21 AM
mithrandir said:
Feel free to talk about your assertions, and I while hold to mine. Which, as you seem to have missed, is that the proposition that torture never produces useful results is false.
Stop building strawmen and start reading.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 1, 2009 10:26 AM
James said:
"And yet you don't provide even one definite example. A priori I can't say that there aren't any, but if you are going to insist there are such examples it's incumbent upon you to provide evidence to support your assertion."
I provided them the LAST time we had a discussion on this topic here a month or two ago. You expect me to actually run them down again because nobody else here remembers them? Won't do it. That would mean enabling all the crack-smoking potheads here to avoid facing their memory retention problems, and I just won't be a party to it.
There appears to already be enough reading comprehension and short term memory problems here, what with people accusing me of favoring the general use of torture, or arguing with me that other techniques are more effective, etc despite me stating two or three times what my position on the use of torture in almost every circumstance except doomsday. No, somebody has to stand firm on the issue of the brain impairment of the forum's readers, and I won't stand by idly when duty calls. ;D
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 1, 2009 10:42 AM
OK, James, all the pill=popping cocaine smoers can rest easy - I googled my post from Decembher 3, 2008. I feel so dirty.:
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 1, 2009 10:52 AM
So, Gingerbaker, that's your evidence, is it? A quote from a magazine article that can only vaguely say that 'in report after report hard-core terrorist leaders are said to be either cooperating or, at the very least, providing some information', without giving specifics, such as which report, and who, exactly, provided what information, except for two examples, gleaned, in turn, from other newspaper reports, one of which is...erm...wrong. It was indeed, the case that Abu Zubaydah did give the name Jose Padilla, also known as Abdullah al-Mujahir, and, acting on information from Abu Zubaydah, he was arrested because it was suspected he was going to detonate a 'dirty bamb' in New York. The details, though were that his 'training' consisted of trying to find out how to construct a dirty bomb on the internet, and Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy defense secretary, admitted that there was 'no actual plan' to detonate any such device. As for Sheikh Mohammed 'discussing operational details with his captors' in June 2003, I'm pretty sure that was the time he WAS discussing operational details - of the 9/11 attacks. And he proudly boasted of being involved and organising it. This was NOT information forced out of him by torture.
Posted by: Smidgy | April 1, 2009 12:46 PM
Prayer is useless. Astrology is useless. Phrenology is useless. You're useless.
All still around.
Posted by: Moses | April 1, 2009 2:28 PM
"Prayer is useless. Astrology is useless. Phrenology is useless. You're useless.
All still around."
Results of torture sessions, unlike the rest of your examples, are verifiable and objective. And fuck you, too, BTW :)
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 2, 2009 11:00 AM
Yes, and it seems we've just verified that torture has not yielded enough good results to justify its continued use as a means of extracting useful info.
As for why it's still around, that's because a) torture has other uses quite apart from information-extraction, for which it is indeed proven to be effective; and b) wishful thinking on the part of the fake-macho ignoramuses referenced above, who will never be able to give up their heartfelt belief that it's good for interrogation. They see it working in the movies, they see it working on Fox, and no peacepussy is ever gonna tell 'em they're wrong.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 2, 2009 11:32 AM
smidgey said:
"So, Gingerbaker, that's your evidence, is it?..."
You didn't read the article, did you? Read the article, and then see if you still believe that torture never works. Thanks.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 2, 2009 12:40 PM
Raging Bee said:
"...torture has other uses quite apart from information-extraction, for which it is indeed proven to be effective;..."
Couldn't agree more.... but that was a typo on your part, wasn't it? :D
I love the fact that so many in this thread have their minds made up based on their emotions - and we have not even defined 'torture' vs 'coercion' vs 'interrogation' in the thread!
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 2, 2009 12:49 PM
I did read the article, and your quote was a fair representative sample, in one regard, at least - all the rest of it was similarly unconvincing, as regards the usefulness of torture. It is obvious that YOU didn't actually read the article properly, though, as you have missed things like:
The only thing that the article suggests does actually work is having good interrogation techniques. Interrogation is not torture. In fact, this is also a quote from the article:
So, it seems, even your own source disagrees with you.
Posted by: Smidgy | April 3, 2009 3:34 PM