Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?
Does torture work?
"Debates about the ethics of torture are all very well, but does it even work in the first place?
"One of the interesting features of the torture debate is that many in the military and intelligence communities seem decidedly unconvinced about the effectiveness of torture. Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent with considerable experience interrogating al-Qaeda operatives, pointed out in Time that:
When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information you're getting is useless.
He isn't alone in this assessment – a number of former intelligence people have expressed similar views, and his words are echoed by the US Army Training Manual's section on interrogation, which suggests that:
…the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.
The situation is further clouded by the fact that members of the George W. Bush administration made claims for the effectiveness of torture that have later been proven to be untrue. One such claim was that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack the Liberty Tower in Los Angeles in 2002. Slight problem - in 2002 Shaikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan.
But enough anecdotes, let's look at the science. Why wouldn't torture be effective? Actually there are many reasons. Let's assume that we have the right guy, and that he does in fact know the information that we need. All we need to do is beat it out of him, right?
Well, no. Suppose I start beating you around the head, demanding that you tell me that Justin Bieber is in fact a supremely talented artist. Eventually, although it may take several days of torture to get there, you'll tell me what I want to hear, but that doesn't make it true."
"The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information."
"In spite of decades of use, and ample opportunity to gather statistics, there just isn't any scientific evidence beyond a few dubious anecdotes to show that torture works."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/nov/04/2