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There are some cases where the detained is guilty beyond a shadow of doubt so why not prod him into talking?
I know how America likes to stand tall above the ugliness of war and torture but we are fighting animals that are capable of anything. I say we should be fighting fire with fire. isis has tortured, maimed, murdered and chopped off many heads using rusty machetes so going beyond the casual poking with a soft cushion shouldn't be out of the question if it might save a innocent life.
Of course something as serious as this torture debate will go on and on just look how ridiculous the FBI vs Apple and unlocking the known terrorists cell phone has dragged on.
Maybe that phone should be water boarded?
Anyone who actually listens to the people who actually have experience in this area knows that torture only rarely works, and when it does work you don't usually know if it actually worked in a usable timeframe. And people who are terrified or in extreme pain will say anything they think will stop the torture, meaning you may get information that is wrong, or an outright lie, or a misleading half-truth they tell you just to stop the pain. So why torture someone if you're not going to get useful information?
Also, if you torture them, you break trust between them and you, which means that even if they give out information once, they're less likely to reveal other things that may also be useful. Things you don't even think to ask about. But if you instead work on developing a level of trust between them and you then whatever they do tell you is at least as likely to be reliable PLUS, in the long term, they may volunteer other information about a wider range of things that you didn't even know about.
In other words, torture is about the torturer feeling like they're in control. Feeling dominant. But it doesn't actually serve the goal of reliable, useful intelligence. If the only reason it's popular is to "feel" in control, then it not only generates bad intelligence, it puts the torturer into a careless mindset, thinking they can control someone that they, in truth, are not actually in control of. It distracts them from the greater goals of getting accurate information.
So, no, I don't think torture should be a regular part of intelligence gathering. There may be a few one-off cases where it might be useful but, again, how do we know it actually worked? Can we know that in a relevant timeframe? In many cases, no.
That's the problem.
Unfortunately, torture advocates tend to lose sight of that big picture. They perceive an opposition to torture as coddling terrorists. They then support torture not for it's claimed utility but just to make sure we're 'being tough'. Of course, this misses the point completely.
This reminds me of people who support draconian punishment in the criminal justice system, but never bother to notice that the most-incarcerating and harshest-penalizing states aren't the ones which are actually maintaining the lower crime rates.
In both cases, following a certain practice isn't really about accomplishing anything but about feel-good measures that don't really have a useful outcome but make proponents feel good about themselves.
Since she seems to me to be an expert in this arena, I asked my wife.
She's all for it.
Funny!
Tina Fey said, while hosting the Golden Globe Awards, "'When it comes to torture, I trust a woman who spent three years married to James Cameron," speaking of Kathryn Bigelow, who had directed Zero Dark Thirty.
Should we be allowed to torture? Maybe. If the barbarians are at the gate, we do what be must to preserve our society. But I think torture is self-limiting. And what is torture? I'd say "no" to attaching electrodes to some guy's ballsack, but wouldn't have an issue with depriving that same guy of sleep for 4 days and making him listen to a continuous stream of Justin Bieber (now that's torture).
But many governments consider sleep deprivation torture. Is making somebody uncomfortable torture? How about making somebody VERY uncomfortable while not specifically inflicting physical pain?
I find it difficult to sympathize with people who burn innocents alive, decapitate innocents, bomb innocents indiscriminately. So yeah, by any means necessary. They have declared war on us. Why stand by and let them attack, attack, ATTACK?
when America captures a known terrorist, do you think we should be able to get information from them by any means necessary or just ask nicely a few times?
I personally say get it any way you can. Start by asking then gently escalate it up to the brink of death. If you disagree, please explain why.
When evidence suggests that torture creates wildly inconsistent results, results that military policy probably shouldn't be functioning off of, the answer to the question of if we should allow torture is a great way to see who is rational and who is not.
I do not want irrational people running anything. Humans, as far as we know, are the only species capable of in depth reasoning. Humans that do not utilize this tool are not the ones we want representing us.
No. We should not torture people. The evidence has made it clear that the results produced from torture are not always accurate. Yes, it can work. But it can also produce have truths, or untruth's at all. And the fact is, if we're the freedom loving good guys, we shouldn't be doing a method that goes against our values, especially if it's not even that effective.
There are some cases where the detained is guilty beyond a shadow of doubt so why not prod him into talking?
I know how America likes to stand tall above the ugliness of war and torture but we are fighting animals that are capable of anything. I say we should be fighting fire with fire. isis has tortured, maimed, murdered and chopped off many heads using rusty machetes so going beyond the casual poking with a soft cushion shouldn't be out of the question if it might save a innocent life.
Of course something as serious as this torture debate will go on and on just look how ridiculous the FBI vs Apple and unlocking the known terrorists cell phone has dragged on.
Maybe that phone should be water boarded?
So this sounds a lot more like punishment and payback than a way to get some good intell...and that's exactly what I think it boils down to.
In Israel they shake terrorists until the talk. It doesn't hurt them or leave marks but it's very effective. Something like this would be ok. Waterboarding isn't bad either since it doesn't cause actual physical harm.
Torture has been a very effective technique over the centuries when done by people who knew what they were doing. You just don't drag a guy into a chamber and start with the white-hot pokers. You question him first, verify what he's told you against things already known. The next session, you repeat what he told you and confront him with fact where he lied. You proceed from there. It can get carried to extremes where the victim will say anything but effective interrogators know how to get information out of people before this point.
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