> Chris Doss wrote:
> > The effectiveness or lack thereof of torture is an
> > emprical question. Is there data?
> >
> Thereappears to be a consensus that torture does not produce actionable
> intelligence.
> Miles
The question when asking about the effectiveness of torture is to ask the further question: Effective for what?
+The Purpose of Torture is Often Simply to Collect Names to Obtain More People to Terrorize (not to collect "intelligence").+ Torture is highly effective in collecting names. If you as a state actor are not worried about "guilt" or "innocence" but only about asserting authority and spreading state terror, then the collection of names is highly effective. If your purpose in torture is primarily to collect names to get other people in to prison, some of whom you subsequently torture, then torture is practically always effective. It was effective in the Middle Ages and in the Latin American terror regimes such as in Brazil and Argentina. The object of this collection of names was to break up social networks, especially student groups, union groups and religious left groups.
+The Torturers Usually Don't Care about "the Truthfulness" of Information+ The torturers in Brazil when interviewed later for "Truth and Reconciliation" commission freely admitted that the "truthfulness" of the information they obtained through torture didn't matter. What mattered was obtaining enough names to break up the social networks surrounding the torture victim. This has been true through out history when torture has been used systematically. Torture is about destroying social networks not about obtaining information. (There are exceptions as when torture is used as a "ordeal" method in ancient legal cases, etc.) If you study the way torture was used in Italian city-states for instance it was always used to break up civil groups that the torturers wished to eliminate. If the torturer tortures 40 people to destroy an illegal guild and only 4 of the people tortured were members of the illegal guild then who cares? As long as the torturer obtains his goal and actually makes the "evil" organization disappears then all is well.
+Torture Does the Job+ If you torture people in mass, and do it consistently, then torture often works, at least in the short run. This is the dirty secret that liberals don't like to confront. It is much more comfortable to believe that "torture" doesn't collect good intelligence. Then you can fool yourself that the reason for "enhanced interrogation methods" is that your intelligence agencies are overzealous in doing their "defined job" of "protecting the nation". Liberals by sticking to their imagined version of "the defined job" of intelligence agencies, then don't have to confront the fact that "the defined job" of the regimes the CIA trained in torture was to spread terror.
So let me state it clearly: _Torture does the job of spreading state terror quite well._ That is why torture is used... That is why the U.S. uses torture. It is not used to collect "intelligence" no matter what the torturers tell you. If a regime is willing to torture in mass, and does not care about who it tortures, and the regimes main goals is to break up social networks, then you have to confront the historical conclusion, that in the short run at least.... torture does the job. Torture works!
One reason I oppose torture is _because_ it works in this way. I don't oppose torture because it is ineffective but because it works to spread state terror. Torture is effective terror and all of those who oppose terror should oppose torture. (For now I will leave aside the questions of Red Terror (as espoused by Trotsky) and Virtuous Terror (as espoused by Robespierre).)
Jerry Monaco