To Torture or not?

[Damocles]

Yes - treated with a level of dignity and respect commensurate with their behaviour. The use of "torture" should just simply be one of a range of options to be deployed where necessary. Even if you choose not to, the fact that you would be willing to exercise extreme methods to achieve your goals can be quite a powerful lever, especially when dealing with people of a similar mentality.

Again though, you're missing the main point.

Torture doesn't work. Torturers go in with an idea of what they want to hear and the torturees make shit up that they think they want to hear to stop being in extreme pain.

makes you wonder why so many nutjobs have done it for so many centuries

and still do

maybe they are just horrible sadistic bastards

or maybe it works

either way we should treat as we find

if our enemy observes the geneva convention then so do we

if the enemy tortures our people then of course all bets are off

There's no maybes and debates about this. It doesn't work. Every single study, research and experiences from the field says it doesn't work. The CIA says it doesn't work. The Nazis said it didn't work. The Soviets say it didn't work. The Viet Cong says it didn't work. Victims of torture admit they've made up stories and gave false confessions under torture. Interrogators around now say it doesn't work and leads to a mix of real and fake information which cannot be determined which is which. Neuroscience and how memory recall works under extreme pain says it doesn't work.

Torture is used as a political tool. When you want people to agree with you for the sake of a confession or the like of, it works great. When you need to gather intelligence from somebody it's completely unreliable.

 

[Balti]

Again though, you're missing the main point.

Torture doesn't work. Torturers go in with an idea of what they want to hear and the torturees make shit up that they think they want to hear to stop being in extreme pain.

makes you wonder why so many nutjobs have done it for so many centuries

and still do

maybe they are just horrible sadistic bastards

or maybe it works

either way we should treat as we find

if our enemy observes the geneva convention then so do we

if the enemy tortures our people then of course all bets are off

There's no maybes and debates about this. It doesn't work. Every single study, research and experiences from the field says it doesn't work. The CIA says it doesn't work. The Nazis said it didn't work. The Soviets say it didn't work. The Viet Cong says it didn't work. Victims of torture admit they've made up stories and gave false confessions under torture. Interrogators around now say it doesn't work and leads to a mix of real and fake information which cannot be determined which is which. Neuroscience and how memory recall works under extreme pain says it doesn't work.

Torture is used as a political tool. When you want people to agree with you for the sake of a confession or the like of, it works great. When you need to gather intelligence from somebody it's completely unreliable.

Fair point well made and indeed that makes me look at it a little differently.

It is clearly unreliable as you say but is till therefore useful in some percentage of cases and given the in extremis situations that this should normally apply to then there are still useful confessions to be had which may ultimately save more lives of our allies for the sake of a bit of pain in an enemy.

That sounds like a trade off worth pursuing if they are ignoring the Geneva Convention. But if they are respecting ours then clearly we should be respecting theirs too.

 

[Damocles]

Fair point well made and indeed that makes me look at it a little differently.

It is clearly unreliable as you say but is till therefore useful in some percentage of cases and given the in extremis situations that this should normally apply to then there are still useful confessions to be had which may ultimately save more lives of our allies for the sake of a bit of pain in an enemy.

That sounds like a trade off worth pursuing if they are ignoring the Geneva Convention. But if they are respecting ours then clearly we should be respecting theirs too.

But how is it useful?

If I give you 100 secrets and tell you that some of them are true and some of them are false, I haven't given you any information because you have no way of knowing which is which. After the CIA torture report, many of the interrogators were alarmed at their use of torture on KSM because it sent their counter intelligence teams up dark alleys cashing ghosts and illusions, potentially taking them off the scent of actual terrorism that they could have gotten a different way.

 

[Balti]

Fair point well made and indeed that makes me look at it a little differently.

It is clearly unreliable as you say but is till therefore useful in some percentage of cases and given the in extremis situations that this should normally apply to then there are still useful confessions to be had which may ultimately save more lives of our allies for the sake of a bit of pain in an enemy.

That sounds like a trade off worth pursuing if they are ignoring the Geneva Convention. But if they are respecting ours then clearly we should be respecting theirs too.

But how is it useful?

If I give you 100 secrets and tell you that some of them are true and some of them are false, I haven't given you any information because you have no way of knowing which is which. After the CIA torture report, many of the interrogators were alarmed at their use of torture on KSM because it sent their counter intelligence teams up dark alleys cashing ghosts and illusions, potentially taking them off the scent of actual terrorism that they could have gotten a different way.

well shirley having 50 lies and 50 truths is better than zero knowledge

or even 1 truth and 99 lies come to that

IF..... geneva convention etc

 

[Damocles]

well shirley having 50 lies and 50 truths is better than zero knowledge

or even 1 truth and 99 lies come to that

IF..... geneva convention etc

No that's worse than having 0 knowledge.

When you have 0 knowledge you know that you don't know anything. When you have 99 lies and 1 truth, you have to spend millions in resources that could have been spent elsewhere determining which is the one truth.

It's like with an anti-virus - not having an anti-virus at all is much safer than having a really shit anti-virus because you know that you're not secured and adjust your behaviours to fit.

 

[Balti]

well shirley having 50 lies and 50 truths is better than zero knowledge

or even 1 truth and 99 lies come to that

IF..... geneva convention etc

No that's worse than having 0 knowledge.

When you have 0 knowledge you know that you don't know anything. When you have 99 lies and 1 truth, you have to spend millions in resources that could have been spent elsewhere determining which is the one truth.

It's like with an anti-virus - not having an anti-virus at all is much safer than having a really shit anti-virus because you know that you're not secured and adjust your behaviours to fit.

option 1 - you know nothing and have no leads

option 2 - you have leads to follow up and some will bear fruit which in turn will lead to more leads

you have the resource anyway so best its utilised on leads rather than scrabbling around in the dark with nothing to go on

option 2 is therefore better

 

[BigJoe#1]

Whilst not disputing the opinions expressed in here I personally find it hard to believe that people that do hold or have held sensitive information in the past would not have been persuaded to part with it.

That said I believe it is standard training for our security people to withstand torture and to deceive lie detectors.

Personally I don't think I buy the respect argument, particularly in this scenario as these individuals lost any human rights of protection they may have had when they mercilessly gunned down the innocent policeman, similarly I feel the same about Lee Rigby's killers, again that said I cannot make up my mind about torture or not - but I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if it happened.

 

[goalmole]

Whilst not disputing the opinions expressed in here I personally find it hard to believe that people that do hold or have held sensitive information in the past would not have been persuaded to part with it.

That said I believe it is standard training for our security people to withstand torture and to deceive lie detectors.

Personally I don't think I buy the respect argument, particularly in this scenario as these individuals lost any human rights of protection they may have had when they mercilessly gunned down the innocent policeman, similarly I feel the same about Lee Rigby's killers, again that said I cannot make up my mind about torture or not - but I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if it happened, as long as it didn't happen to me.

Finished off for you.

 

[Damocles]

option 1 - you know nothing and have no leads

option 2 - you have leads to follow up and some will bear fruit which in turn will lead to more leads

you have the resource anyway so best its utilised on leads rather than scrabbling around in the dark with nothing to go on

option 2 is therefore better

The options are never that simple though. It's far easier to use non-torture techniques within the framework of the law for information gathering.

It's also worth pointing out that at no time in the last 20 years would any intelligence agency not have any leads to go on. Digital recording and sorting of communication has put an end to that. The problem is the opposite one - they have so many leads to go on that they cannot separate the noise from the relevant chatter. Getting a 1 in 100 hit ratio and investing all of the money into that investigation is the problem. Remember when we talk about resources here we aren't just talking about money but the lives of operatives in the field too. Operatives who have spent years positioning themselves in place so that when some solid info comes up they can report it. Losing one of them is worth thousands of man hours

 

[BigJoe#1]

Whilst not disputing the opinions expressed in here I personally find it hard to believe that people that do hold or have held sensitive information in the past would not have been persuaded to part with it.

That said I believe it is standard training for our security people to withstand torture and to deceive lie detectors.

Personally I don't think I buy the respect argument, particularly in this scenario as these individuals lost any human rights of protection they may have had when they mercilessly gunned down the innocent policeman, similarly I feel the same about Lee Rigby's killers, again that said I cannot make up my mind about torture or not - but I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if it happened, as long as it didn't happen to me.

Finished off for you.

Thanks. You never ever know what information has been gathered and from where. We are legitimately (I think) told that there are numerous "incident" thwarted every year.

By the way, if I had been involved in any such incident and caught (and remember the original question) I don't think I'd have complaints about any treatment I received, I don't think I could have - maybe it's the common sense approach that separates me from the radicals.

If information was gleaned through such means that could be directly linked to saving your nearest and dearest, and without it they would have undoubtedly been killed - would you feel the same way? Highly unlikely I know, but much more likely than me getting myself into a situation whereby I would be a suspect being tortured!