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I don't know, the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation tool is for understandable reasons difficult to assess. However, the fact that it's a constant wh
by mercurial 14y ago
I don't know, the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation tool is for understandable reasons difficult to assess. However, the fact that it's a constant whenever a state is confronted to assymetrical warfare (think of the infamous Battle of Algiers, or how torture used to be legal in Israel until 1999) is an indication that it is difficult to work without in some contexts, dictatorship or not.
Of course, the fact that it's perfectly unethical entails a heavy cost in terms of image, especially for modern democracies.
- btilly 14y agoI don't know, the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation tool is for understandable reasons difficult to assess. Not so. It is remarkably easy to assess, and everyone who cares to know already knows the answer. After you break under torture, the victim will tell the torturer anything they think the torturer wants to hear, and has very little sense of what is or is not true. "Beating" torture is simple - pretend break early and tell interesting lies. When you really break you'll no longer know truth from fiction - nor can a questioner who has no idea which leads are true and false. Once you've hit that point then absolutely no method of getting information can work. We have much, much more reliable interrogation techniques. Ones that we can use without giving propaganda benefits to our enemies. Admittedly no other technique gives the same visceral satisfaction of making someone pay. But once you've gone the torture route, you can't undo that choice.