I don't understand how torture works AT ALL

[captain2man]

Last night on one of the cable news shows (not the 24-hour FoxNews Infomercial network) they had an intervie with Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was born in Syria. About a year after the 9/11 attacks, he had a stopover in New York flying from Tunisia to Canada.

Based upon apparently bad info from the RCMP, the INS detained him. Even though he was a Canadian citizen, carrying a passport, he was deported to Syria by the U.S. via the "extraordinary rendition" policy.

He was held in solitary confinement, in a cell the size of a coffin, he was regularly beaten & tortured. He was finally released & sent back to Canada & had his name cleared.

After detailing what he went through - I just don't understand how torture even works!

Forget about how you feel ethically about torture....the point of torture is to get information....but - I'll tell you - if I had to go through what he went through - I'd admit to being my own father if that's what it took to make it all stop.

If the point is to get legitimate information - and not just to punish....I can't see how this is the right road.

[WordWhiz]

Torture works in "ticking time bomb" scenarios, where you know that the victim has the info you need, and can easily verify if he's telling the truth or just saying what you want to stop the torture.

This happens about 3 times a year on 24, but almost never in real life.

[Copernicus]

Nonsense. Trained interrogators get very reliable information.

If it were permitted a combination of thiopental and waterboarding (in that order) would be even more reliable, and have minimal lasting effects.

[aheravi]

[ QUOTE ]
Nonsense. Trained interrogators get very reliable information.

If it were permitted a combination of thiopental and waterboarding (in that order) would be even more reliable, and have minimal lasting effects.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some of your nonsense is amazing.

read the third paragraph

[captain2man]

[ QUOTE ]
Nonsense. Trained interrogators get very reliable information.

If it were permitted a combination of thiopental and waterboarding (in that order) would be even more reliable, and have minimal lasting effects.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is that an interrogator can only get reliable info from someone who HAS reliable info.

Someone who has NO reliable info will start talking anyway just to get out of their current predicament.

So - if you've got everyone talking - some may be telling reliable info, others won't....seems to me that even assuming you're argument 100% correct - the method, as a whole, still fails.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
So - if you've got everyone talking - some may be telling reliable info, others won't....seems to me that even assuming you're argument 100% correct - the method, as a whole, still fails.


[/ QUOTE ]

When police get a confession from a suspect, their first objective is to confirm the story they hear by asking for details of the crime, the location of a weapon, etc. I think it's right to assume that military interrogators would do the same.

[WordWhiz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So - if you've got everyone talking - some may be telling reliable info, others won't....seems to me that even assuming you're argument 100% correct - the method, as a whole, still fails.


[/ QUOTE ]

When police get a confession from a suspect, their first objective is to confirm the story they hear by asking for details of the crime, the location of a weapon, etc. I think it's right to assume that military interrogators would do the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is absolutely incorrect. False confessions are the 2nd leading cause of wrongful incarceration in the U.S., after witness error. Police do interrogations quite poorly, often feeding suspects key information (usually unwittingly), which then works its way into the confession. It's not at all uncommon for police to finish an interrogation, confident they've gotten an accurate, verified confession, but when the video is reviewed afterwards, it's obvious that the suspect knew nothing beyond what the police told him.

Given the frequency of false confessions in ordinary criminal cases, in which coercion usually amount to nothing more than hot lights and a few hours in a small room against a good cop/ bad cop team, I can't imagine how many people confess to things they didn't do when faced with stress positions, waterboarding, long term sleep deprivation, and other "aggressive interrogation" techniques.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
Trained interrogators get very reliable information.

[/ QUOTE ] You mean ..through torture??

I suppose you have some hard facts to back up this claim, or at least testimony from experienced torturers. Anything personal you care to recount, in this matter?

It would be interesting to recount evidence from your side of the argument, i.e. the torturer's. We hear so much from the side of the whining, protesting tortured cry-babies, but we never get to hear from the hard-working torturers.

[ QUOTE ]
If it were permitted a combination of thiopental and waterboarding (in that order) would be even more reliable, and have minimal lasting effects.

[/ QUOTE ]Care to share some data? Not just success rates but stuff like how many subjects of your preferred torture you expect to lose before you get something out of them, etc. You know, death-to-confession rate, the usual stuff.

Mickey Brausch

Wiki entry for Thiopental
Wiki entry for Waterboarding

[HumanACtor]

Torture involves hooks, blades, acid, and nowadays, electric drills.

I wonder how this Canadian managed to survive this on a daily basis.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd admit to being my own father if that's what it took to make it all stop.

[/ QUOTE ]

You nailed it.

Also: abuse is a form of projection and (not) dealing with feelings. Clearly these military men and politicians had the worst childhoods of all people.