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My late step-father's brother was a POW in North Korea and China for 2+ years in the Korean war era. He was a gunner on an Air Force bomber that was shot down over N. Korea, and was injured in the parachute jump from the damaged aircraft. As a POW He got no medical care, lost over 1/3 of his body weight, suffered frostbite, malnutrition, starvation, beatings, long solitary confinement, long marches. He was one of the lucky ones, because many of his fellow prisoners did not survive. His family or the US government was never notified he was a POW during the Korean War, so he never got letters or was allowed to write letters. Imagine their shock when he returned home.
This is the only survivor of actual torture that I have ever met, and he is still alive and well. If he was forced to answer questions as a POW to stay alive, he would give a rambling answer with no factual information. Why would present day captives do anything else when faced with torture? Basic human survival instinct has not changed that much in the last 6 decades. Torture does far more harm to the country that sanctions the torture than any perceived benefit that it might provide to that country.
My late step-father's brother was a POW in North Korea and China for 2+ years in the Korean war era. He was a gunner on an Air Force bomber that was shot down over N. Korea, and was injured in the parachute jump from the damaged aircraft. As a POW He got no medical care, lost over 1/3 of his body weight, suffered frostbite, malnutrition, starvation, beatings, long solitary confinement, long marches. He was one of the lucky ones, because many of his fellow prisoners did not survive. His family or the US government was never notified he was a POW during the Korean War, so he never got letters or was allowed to write letters. Imagine their shock when he returned home.
This is the only survivor of actual torture that I have ever met, and he is still alive and well. If he was forced to answer questions as a POW to stay alive, he would give a rambling answer with no factual information. Why would present day captives do anything else when faced with torture? Basic human survival instinct has not changed that much in the last 6 decades. Torture does far more harm to the country that sanctions the torture than any perceived benefit that it might provide to that country.
How do you know? And why? If I were tortured I'd know only BY giving factual answers would be the only way to stop. If I start lying they are just going to get even more mad and torture me even worse. Whereas you give them all the info they want they'll be happy and not torture.
OP: Under torture, people have admitted to being witches, turning themselves into animals, having sexual relations with the Devil, making people and animals ill through magic, etc., etc. That is one reason why torture is not always reliable.
"Rambling answer with no factual information" could just mean opinions and irrelevant points, with little or no lying. Besides, North Koreans probably didn't have great translators who could quickly catch on to the tactic, which would waste a lot of time. Language issue aside, I think it's a good example of how torture might produce lousy information. By the way, it's possible that even America has lousy interrogators who ask questions that are unlikely to lead to the desired info. It's not a field where tactics are based on much research.
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