Torture is useless as a means of extracting useful information

[Jackpine Radical]

in an interrogation. Everybody knows that. Under torture, people will tell you whatever they think you want to hear so you will stop torturing them.

Even George Bush probably knows that.

So why do these people want to be able to torture their victims? Why is it important to them to have this useless interrogation method at their disposal?

Because, while torture is of no value in getting people to tell you things, it still does have some use. In particular, it is a wonderful way of terrorizing folks. You'll think twice before you mess with people who have a reputation for pulling out fingernails and wiring your nipples to little crank generators.

Torture isn't about getting information out of people. It's about instituting a reign of terror.

[rocktivity]

1. The other down side to torture is that endangers your troops

in the event that THEY are taken prisoner. Is it any wonder that the bodies being found in Iraq are showing "signs of torture?" Betgween Abu Grhaib and Bush wanting to legalize for all practical purposes, why would the enemy want to do it, too? What has Bush said about torture in this regard?

:headbang:
rocknation

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Once your troops are taken, they are out of the game & no

longer matter to somebody like a Neocon. Actually, the threat of torture may be a good<'i> thing from the Neocon perspective because it decreases the likelihood of your troops surrendering.

[rocktivity]

9. Are you insinuating that our troops are bunch of girly men

--and, uh, girly women who'd rather die than be tortured? Good thing you mentioned that you were writing "from a Neocon perspective," otherwise you'd find yourself just one phone call away from a one-way trip to Abu Ghraib!

Of COURSE our troops can and should be tortured--if those yellow rice freaks in Viet Nam and those brown rag freaks in Iraq can take it, surely our red-blooded all-American soldiers can!

:eyes:
rocknation

[Warpy]

2. It makes them feel like they're doing something

when a situation is clearly out of their control. Plus, for some types of people (the majority, sadly), it feels good to have than kind of power over another human being.

There are multiple psych experiments showing the majority of people are willing to do whatever they've been told to do to other people if they're given any sort of a justification, as in an electroshock test when the subjects were told another person was the subject being tested for the stress response of being hit with shocks. Few people had any problem ramping up the shocks even when the plant was writhing in feigned pain.

It doesn't work. It dehumanizes the torturer. These are the reasons we declared it inhuman, uncivilized, illegal.

Damn this administration to the hell they imagine for suggesting otherwise.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Ah, yes, the Milgram experiments.

Ethical standards for research in psychology were massively revised as a direct result of Stanley Milgram's research. There was a lot of good and some bad that came of that revision.

[sui generis]

3. worse - I know a bomb will go off in thirty minutes and where

they torture me. I tell them all to go to the other side of the city.

Oh yeah, and wait, YOU know where the bomb is, but you're dead, so they pick up your elderly blind neighbor and torture her to see if it helps jog her memory.

Or your kids. There's nothing that says they can't pick up your kids and torture them. In front of you.

We have become the ugly thing we fear.

[gratuitous]

6. They're not looking for prospective legalization

Bush and his minions have already tortured people. It's on the record and indisputable. What has changed is the political calculus, and that is that Bush is now nearer than he ever thought he could be to an actionable prosecution for torturing people. What Bush wants is "clarity": Clarity in this case meaning that he wants absolution from Congress for what he's already done. I saw the clip of Bush tap-dancing around David Gregory's question at today's press conference, and it's pretty clear that this little man knows he's in big trouble. Force and bluster have always worked in the past for him, and so it's no surprise that he's going to try it again.

I think the time we really have to worry is when Bush quits trying to defend himself in public. Depressed over the prospects, probably deep into substance abuse, there's going to be a big part of him that says "fuck it," and he'll reach for the football and the nuclear launch codes. Will there be enough sanity left in our government to stop him when that happens?

[nealmhughes]

7. It appears to have worked on witches. The tortured suddenly came to their

senses and confessed, naming names. We have the ash piles to prove its efficacy.:sarcasm:

[DemoTex]

8. "Intel" gained by torture is indeed specious. Worse, though, is this ..

Bu$h wants to be able to use info gained in torture as evidence in his secret tribunals. The defendants will not have access to that "HUM-INT" (intelligence gleaned from human sources) evidence - classified info, you know - "HUM-INT" that was meretricious from the get-go. Nor will the defendants' attorneys, if indeed they have attorneys (how will the world ever know, under the cloak of secrecy that is Bu$hco)? Talk about double or triple jeopardy!

This issue has the potential of melting away the thin veneer of pseudo-legitimacy that the Bu$h regime has donned .. quicker than a warm rain on a light dusting of snow. For that reason, and for the reasons that have everything to do with crime and punishment, Bu$hco will not let the Congress block him on this issue.

Should Bu$h be blocked, we will be in mortal peril of a (another?) false flag operation. The MoFos' backs are against the wall. Desperate men, desperate measures, etc., etc..

Check six. Verb sap.