I’m no expert on torture, but it seems to me that if I was being tortured I would tell the torturers whatever they wanted to hear in order to get them to stop — whether it is truthful or not. What if I didn’t know the answer? Wouldn’t I tell them anything to get them to stop?
Have there been studies done on the validity of information gained via torture? It seems to me that torture is a low percentage proposition.[/quote]
Torture is a thing that depends upon solid knowledge by the torturers.
You don’t go on a goose chase with torture, you need to know exactly
what it is, and to have a way to verify it, before you engage in torture.
Here are two examples.
1) I have temecula guy being waterboarded, and i want his PIN number
to his ATM Card. I have the ATM Card, I know he has the PIN Number,
and it’s just a matter of some water and time to get it, and i can
check it easily. Trust me, TG will be coughing up that number in
10 minutes.
2) I have TG and his family, and 8 of his close friends and neighbors.
I think one of them has the total value of bin laden’s
savings account in a swiss bank. I start torturing TG for the
value. Then his wife, then his kid, then the friends,
even if i get a number, how do i check it, the swiss won’t
release that number to me. So what do i gain?
I get numbers all over the place, from 15 people, which number
is correct and which one is meaningful?
if you want another example, try the location of a kidnapped american
soldier that is MIA in Afghanistan? It’s hard to verify and the
data may change.
McCain was tortured, when they asked him his target he coughed it up,
because it was pretty obvious where he going at the time. They then
asked who was in his squadron and he named the green bay packers
front line.
what use to the NVA was it to torture McCain? none.
it was brutality for brutality alone.
There is a reason torture is not used in court. If torture was effective,
it would be used all the time.
