Does torture work?

One of the most facile dismissals of torture is that it doesn't work, so why bother? That's tempting, but it's too easy. Torture seems to me very likely to work provided that you can verify the information, which I assume interrogators can in at least some circumstances. Nor is it obvious to me that the quality of information is likely to be lower than that obtained by other means: yes, people will say anything to avoid torture, but they'll also say anything to avoid imprisonment. Maybe the lies will be vivider or more voluble under torture, but it doesn't seem necessarily so that the ratio of lies to truth will increase.

I'd rather see people take the hard stance and say "Yeah, torture may still work, but we still shouldn't use it because it's wrong." Otherwise, you're kind of stuck if someone comes up with a way to make it effective. I've been thinking about this in relation to the much vaunted lie detecting brain scans. Most people have talked about the implications for the criminal justice system--does the fifth amendment still apply? But what I wonder is, what does this mean for torturers? If you can actually tell accurately when someone is lying, torture suddenly becomes very, very effective, doesn't it? And yet, it would still be wrong. So make the case on those grounds. Efficiency is a dangerous red herring.

Comments

Isn't the whole point that you can compel someone to say anything at all, if you torture them enough? You can compel someone to admit to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, if you hurt them badly enough.

As far as this "Torture seems to me very likely to work provided that you can verify the information, which I assume interrogators can in at least some circumstances"-- isn't the whole argument that we only use torture when we need to obtain some vital piece of information that we are sure will save lives? If you can verify it, why do you need the torture? I don't think you've thought that part through.

I think you're right that the major objection to torture is an ethical one-- and yes, I think it is absolutely compelling-- but I think you're being a little to dismissive of the problems with torture as a means to gather intelligence.

Posted by Malvolio | August 22, 2007 11:41 AM

The moral argument is fundamental, but I think you're putting the burden on the wrong place with the practical argument. We (opponents of torture) don't have to demonstrate that torture is never effective. If we accept that torture is wrong at all (which I think most people are willing to start with) then someone who wants to torture needs to show that they have good reason to believe that it will be more reliable and effective than non-torture methods of interrogation. In the absence of such a demonstration, which I've never seen made, you never get to the moral argument about whether you'd torture, even though torture is basically wrong, if you really really really had to.

Posted by LizardBreath | August 22, 2007 12:08 PM

No, Malvolio, in the case of very specific information, if it can be verified, torture works quite well. A Japanese Admiral is captured in the last week of November 1941, by covert means, and is asked where the Imperial Japanese Fleet has gone. He refuses to tell, and is subjected to torture, and then gives some inaccurate information on December 1st. He is told that the information will be verified within 48 hours, and if it is incorrect, the torture will be more severe. He then provides the accurate information.

Yes, it is hyperbolic hypothetical, but it illustrates that when information coerced by torture can be verified, and the torture victim fears the outcome of providing inaccurate information, torture can be effective. If the brain scanning technology proves to be extremely effective in detecting liars, this will be even more true. A utilitarian opposition to torture ultimately founders.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 12:21 PM

Agreed that the "torture doesn't work" argument is becoming overused, and there's been some loss of clarity on the point that subjecting people to excruciating pain and terror is evil because...if it's not, it's really not clear what "evil" means.

Still, as Malvolio says, if you can verify the info, why do you need the torture? This would only be an argument for the use of torture in a very routinized fashion to gather large volumes of information that can be cross-checked against other (torture-generated) info. I find it hard to believe, even in our debased political environment, that people would accept making torture a ROUTINE part of interrogations. (This is, in fact, how the North Vietnamese used torture: as a routine part of interrogation of recent captures, just to help verify battlefield info which they mostly already knew.) Instead, torture advocates always use the "exceptional circumstances" argument -- ticking time bombs etc. Those are precisely the circumstances that render torture useless, as the info can't be checked.

As for lie detecting brain scans...really, let's cross that bridge when we come to it. I find it hard to believe that "lying" is actually a category of activity that matches up to a discrete brain pattern; it's too similar to "telling a story". My 3-year-old's lies and fantasies are mixed up with his accurate reporting in a totally indistinguishable fashion, and I'm not sure he even knows which is which.

Posted by brooksfoe | August 22, 2007 12:27 PM

A utilitarian opposition to torture ultimately founders.

An explicitly, solely, practical opposition to torture might. An opposition to torture starting from the moral principle that at least we shouldn't torture or abuse prisoners unless we have strong reason to think that it is necessary and will be effective, and leaving the question of what to do when we do have such strong reason until the practical case comes up, is still a relevant way to address all the actual political questions relating to torture that have come up in recent years.

Posted by LizardBreath | August 22, 2007 12:27 PM

"I'd rather see people take the hard stance and say 'Yeah, torture may still work, but we still shouldn't use it because it's wrong.'"

That would be a more honest position to take, but a thoughtful person ought not to stop there. It makes little sense to say "I oppose torture" without offering a definition of torture. No doubt Dennis Kucinich has a different definition of torture than say Dick Cheney. There are some things--like waterboarding--that I think are quite acceptable, but I'm willing to consider a rational and coherent argument on the other side.

After difining the word clearly, the opponent of torture ought to explain why it is wrong to torture people. Empassioned denunciations alone will not do. Those who oppose coercive treatment of terrorists had better offer good reasons for their position.

After all, the argument for coersion is quite compelling. The United States government has a sacred duty to protect its citizens. As Megan admits, torture can be effective in getting valuable information about ongoing threat to American security. So, unless there is a very good reason not to do it, it makes sense for the American government to apply sufficient pressure to terrorists to get the information they need to protect the Amercian people.

Posted by isocrates | August 22, 2007 12:30 PM

I agree that the ethical argument is the most compelling one to make against torture, but the "it doesn't work" angle tends to be more effective if you're arguing with someone whose moral fiber is so rotten that he just doesn't care if it's abhorrent.

Posted by gorillagogo | August 22, 2007 12:31 PM

LB is right about the burden. You're also making a pretty ludicrous claim about the danger of false confessions, based on approximately zero engagement with actual factual evidence of how torture actually tends to work in practice (either in the U.S.'s recent experiment, or in general). I could right pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages about this, but you might find it too depressing too bother with, so I think I'll pass. "It seems to me." Oh, interesting. But what is it based on? Nothing, as far as I can tell.

But the biggest problem, which is not one restricted to you, is that you buy into an artificial separation between the moral argument and the practical argument. You buy into this premise of sterilized, carefully calibrated torture by trained intelligence professionals who are torturing exactly the right people in exactly the right ways to prevent terrorists from murdering innocent American civilians. To your credit, you still think it should be illegal. But the whole premise is false, and having the argument based on this false premise is what has enabled the administration to get away with such atrocities. Whereas if we look, in excruciating detail at the effects, it becomes almost impossible to defend the administration's policies. That's what's radicalized me about this issue: researching the factual circumstances of US torture policy. Read up on the Maher Arar case and tell me again about how there's no particular danger of torture leading to false confessions. Read up on Dilawar, and tell me again about how our decision to abandon Geneva actually protects innocent civilians. And believe me, there are other examples.

It's not a coincidence that the U.S.'s experiment with torture (& indefinite detention) has gone so badly--that there's far better evidence of us torturing innocent civilians, in some cases to death, and helping pound some more nails into our chances in Iraq, than of saving American lives. The same thing tends to happen whenever any country tries this, and there have been plenty of experiments at this point. Their failure isn't a coincidence. It's a power that corrupts. It may start with a desire to find out accurate intelligence from high level suspects on imminent threats to save lives, but give one human being complete power to brutalize another and it takes about 5 minutes for all that nice-sounding stuff to be thrown out the window. It's ineffective *because* it's immoral, and it's ineffectiveness destroys the utilitarian moral argument that people usually make in favor of it.

Posted by Katherine | August 22, 2007 12:34 PM

After all, the argument for coersion is quite compelling.

What's so compelling about coercing someone when, by definition, you don't know what they know? Or more importantly, whether they know something worth coercing out of them in the first place?

Posted by gorillagogo | August 22, 2007 12:38 PM

Instead, torture advocates always use the "exceptional circumstances" argument -- ticking time bombs etc. Those are precisely the circumstances that render torture useless, as the info can't be checked.

Right. Also, as Michael Kinsley demonstrated brilliantly, these kind of hypothetical extremes don't happen in real life. (You KNOW there's going to be an imminent terrorist attack, you KNOW it's large scale, you have someone in custody who you KNOW is a part of the plot, you KNOW that he will reveal key information under torture, you KNOW that information will be accurate, you KNOW that having it will make it possible for the authorities to stop the attack... it's an unreal situation. It's too TV.

Of course, the important thing is, we're the country that doesn't (or says it doesn't) torture. We hold ourselves up to the world as this beacon of democracy and freedom, and as much BS as there may be in that, it's something to take seriously. We're the country that doesn't resort to this sort of thing. Or, at least, that's the country we should be.

Posted by Freddie | August 22, 2007 12:40 PM

um test

Posted by Socky McPuppet | August 22, 2007 12:40 PM

My test for torture:

Imagine (against all logic and rationality) that the US government is convinced that you have vital information and getting it from you could save lots of lives, if not this very second then in the weeks and months to come (in other words, no 'ticking bomb' but their motivation for getting the info from your uncooperative self is pretty high).

You've made all the disclaimers you can, you know nothing! nothing! But they don't believe you and their patience is getting thinner and thinner.

What, precisely do you want them to be able to do to you?

Posted by Michael Farris | August 22, 2007 12:51 PM

um, double test

Posted by Freddie | August 22, 2007 12:52 PM

oooooooooh if you include a link they have to verify it. Makes sense. Sorry for that.

Posted by Freddie | August 22, 2007 12:53 PM

"What's so compelling about coercing someone when, by definition, you don't know what they know? Or more importantly, whether they know something worth coercing out of them in the first place?"

I'm not sure what your argument is. You seem to be trying to construct an argument a priori that we couldn't possibly get information out of anyone (an argument that owes something to Meno and St. Anselm). But this isn't a matter for a priori arguments. This question can only be answered empirically.

I've heard George Tenet say that he received extremely valuable information from the detainees due to coercive interrogation methods--infomation that actually saved lives. And he said this recently, so he is not merely giving the administration's line. Tenet might not have been a superb CIA chief, but he certainly was in a position to observe the efficacy of various coercive interrogation techniques and has conluded that they are an invaluable tool. And he is hardly alone.

I know some here who have no expertise or experience in these matters will say "Tenet doesn't know what he's talking about," but I hope they will forgive me for not finding their rather uninformed protestations very persuasive.

Posted by isocrates | August 22, 2007 1:16 PM

brooksfoe, a torturer may want to torture when the information can only be verified after he is told where to look. The torturer knows the terrorist leader exists, but not know where the safe house is located. The torturer knows the enemy has a weapons cache hidden, but not where. There are many scenarios where torture could be usefully employed to gain specific details of generalized knowledge, when the torture victim knows that providing inaccurate information will result in yet more torture. Of course, this will also result in truly ignorant people being subjected to agony, but one of the ugly realities of torture is that it eventually attracts or transforms people who start torturing victims purely for the entertainment.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 1:21 PM

I've heard George Tenet say that he received extremely valuable information from the detainees due to coercive interrogation methods--infomation that actually saved lives.

Well, he would, wouldn't he? It's not like he's going to say "We tortured people and it didn't do jack." He's in intelligence. Of course he wants the power to do any hideous thing under the sun. And who exactly was saved? Which plots specifically were these? How was the terrorist in question captured? How did his interrogators come to know that he had valuable information? Without the context or information, I don't see how this is valuable.

The real question is, why does our country have such a worthless human-intelligence aspect to our intelligence service that we have to rely on torture?

Posted by Malvolio | August 22, 2007 1:21 PM

Every time they make that argument & it's actually possible to examine the details at all it turns out not to be quite true--there turn out to be press reports about the key information that led to some arrest or the prevention of some attack coming from some computer they captured, or a tip from an informant, etc. etc.

Tenet signed off on torture--there's a decent argument that was a felony. Of course he's going to claim he has secret evidence that it was necessary to save American lives. Yeah, I bet it's a slam dunk.

Posted by Katherine | August 22, 2007 1:21 PM

The real problem with attempting to separate out the moral issues from any practical issues is laid out in Belle Waring's classic post "By the power of stipulation". You can get people to agree that they'd do any bad thing at all, say, torturing a three year old child to death, if you can stipulate that something much much worse will happen if they don't do it. To talk about the question morally, you really do have to talk about the practical issues first.

Posted by LizardBreath | August 22, 2007 1:24 PM

Torture should be opposed because it's immoral, period. It's a hideous relic of the brutal past that only makes the present more brutal. It makes us sadists and butchers. But let's set one thing straight right now--the utilitarian argument (oppose torture because it's not very effective in the first place) is doomed to fail not because it could be wrong sometime down the road, but because it's wrong NOW--torture is often VERY effective, once you realize the intent of the torturer.

Torture designed to wring confessions out of people is part of a sham trial process. The victim will, eventually, say anything to stop the pain. The truthfulness of the confession is irrelevant, and everyone knows that. All that matters is that the confession is made. And that's the administration's policy, in a nutshell. It doesn't matter to Cheney and Co. one damn bit if the information from Gitmo or secret prison or renditioned detainees is bogus, because that's not what they're after. All that matters is the confession part. The administration (most of the time) isn't after vital information on the War on Terror--that's a lie. It wants bogus confessions. That's the real insidiousness of the White House policy. It's turned American jurisprudence into the Inquisition.

Torture to get actual information that the torturer really cares about is a different story--but the danger of its being effective is very real. The victim knows that the pain won't stop until he / she gives their torturer the information they are seeking. They can make up a plausible lie, but must be aware that their interregator won't stop the pain for good--either by ending the torture or killing them--until the information is verified. Some victims may have the constitution to play that game, but many won't. It's wasn't for nothing that the Allies were petrified that the Germans might capture someone who had knowledge of the D-Day plans. The very fact we recognize such a danger is an acknowledgement of the possibility that such torture could work.

So we should oppose torture on moral grounds first and always.

Posted by Claudius | August 22, 2007 1:35 PM

Yet another facile blog from Megan McArdle. She writes two paragraphs defending torture as an effective instrument even suggesting ways its efficacy could be improved. Then, at the end, in a desperate attempt to pretend she opposes torture she concedes "[a]nd yet, it would still be wrong" and asks us, her readers, to make the case for her.

If Megan McArdle really believes that torture is wrong she should make the case herself rather than play the naive devils advocate.

Posted by ndm | August 22, 2007 1:36 PM

Still, as Malvolio says, if you can verify the info, why do you need the torture?
Verifying information is very different to developing it. In the Japanese admiral example, it would be impossible to quickly scour the whole Pacific to find their fleet, but relatively easy to send someone to point X to verify the claim that they are there.

The unreliability of the information does not strike me as being such a big point as all that. All information, from all sources, is unreliable.

I think this whole debate is slightly beside the point. What we need is a reasonably clear policy on the treatment, interrogation, imprisonment and release of prisoners of varying descriptions. Something that people can actually follow.

Example: under what circumstances do we send someone to Guantanamo, what can we do with him (or her) while there, under what circumstances should they be released into whose custody?

If you have no policy, then people will have to do whatever seems right to them at the time. What else can they do?

Posted by ad | August 22, 2007 1:36 PM

Isocrates, we can only lament that Generals Marshall and Eisennhower weren't smart enough to order routine torture of all POWs in WWII. Think of the lives that might have been saved at Kasserine Pass, the Bulge, or Arnhem! Not to mention their passing up the use of poison gas. What fools they were!

Posted by Muskrat | August 22, 2007 1:39 PM

Claudius makes a good point, too. How do you, as a citizen of the country that did the torturing, propose to determine that the torture was necessary and effective? You will have the word of the CIA agent that it was. No f-ing duh. Gestapo agents certainly also testified that the torture they engaged in was necessary in their country's national security interests.

I mean, let's say you're a Gestapo agent at a Nazi stalag. You've recently captured a downed American colonel who probably knows which two German cities have been selected for bombing raids in the next two days. If you torture him for the information, it could save tens of thousands of German lives. Don't you, the Gestapo agent, have a moral responsibility to torture that American colonel?

Posted by brooksfoe | August 22, 2007 1:48 PM

"it makes sense for the American government to apply sufficient pressure to terrorists to get the information they need"

I say get the suspects child and start cutting fingers off. There's no end to the 'pragmatism' of the torturer. We do it because we like doing it.

Posted by judson | August 22, 2007 1:50 PM

The great humanitarians here have told me that Dick Cheney is evil and George Tenet is a sadist, but not one of them has offered a clear defintion of torture, nor a rational argument showing that it is immoral. "Torture should be opposed because it's immoral, period," one says. Sorry that doesn't cut it.

I don't consider waterboarding torture and I don't accept that it is immoral. Indeed, one could make a persuasive case that failing to use such coersion, when doing so would kill no one but save thousands or even millions (as in the famous "ticking bomb" scenario) is profoundly immoral.

The government has a responsibility to protect its people. If that entails giving a few degenerate terrorists a hard time, that's alright with me. Should there be a line the government does not to cross? Yes, probably. But there is profound disagreement about where that line is to be drawn. There are some here who seem to think anything less pleasant than Club Med is "torture" and ought to be forbidden.

Posted by isocrates | August 22, 2007 1:56 PM

This is pathetic. There's no need for debate. Torture is wrong, it's unamerican, it's criminal, and the fact its supporters, who lack souls, have to conjure up highly imaginary scenarios to justify it only reinforces its uselessness in reality. An idea like kidnapping and torturing a Japanese general sounds... still insane even with the benefit of historical hindsight, but consider it in the context of the time. It would have been nothing less than an act of war, at a time when the US was still publicly not behind entering WWII.
Torture is about power, not about gathering intelligence. It's a means of feeling tough for someone such as Cheney as every decision they make fails spectacularly. It's a display of impotence and lack of imagination. It used to be part of what separated America from the truly brutal regimes of the world, and now stands as the only proof needed that we have lost our way.

Posted by brad | August 22, 2007 2:02 PM

re: iscocrates above.

Megan has found her audience.

Posted by Steve Kelso | August 22, 2007 2:04 PM

for fucks's sake.

even the romans knew that information extracted via torture was at best unreliable, and at worst complete falsehood. seriously, look it up.

you can apply all manner of MATHEMATICAL analyses, involving putative error rates and coercive coefficients (ask bruce schneier, or a behavioral scientist even, to lay it all out for you), and you still come up with a HIGHER ERROR RATE THAN NON-COERCIVE INTERROGATION.

now, if coercive interrogation ("torture") gives you a greater error rate than non-coercive (small room, good cop/bad cop, hot lights, etc.) then investing any energy into coercive interrogation is counterproductive - think of the inevitable PTSD or reinforcement of the crueler side of the interrogators' nature as a really huge fucking externality.

and it's still _morally_ wrong.

Posted by rageahol | August 22, 2007 2:05 PM

I'm not sure what your argument is. You seem to be trying to construct an argument a priori that we couldn't possibly get information out of anyone (an argument that owes something to Meno and St. Anselm).

I'm not saying that we couldn't possibly get information out of anyone. My point is that you seem awful quick to just dismiss the fact that sooner or later innocent people are going to wind up getting sodomized, or having the German Shepherds sicced on them, or getting shackled to the floor for 18 hours at a time. You may think that's a small price to pay because George Tenet says so but I think that's a grotesque moral calculus you're using.

The funny part, to me, was when you stated upthread that you thought it was torture opponents who needed to explain themselves. Good one!

Posted by gorillagogo | August 22, 2007 2:08 PM

Also, isocrates: how many ticking time bombs do you think torture has saved us from so far? I'm wagering the answer is a big fat zero, given the Bush Admin's penchant for loudly proclaiming every plot they've thwarted.

Posted by gorillagogo | August 22, 2007 2:16 PM

Y'all have completely misunderstood me. I mean, yes, I think you're wrong, and that torture theoretically must work sometimes, but that's mostly beside the point. The point is, we shouldn't argue about whether torture works, because it's the wrong grounds on which to fight the battle. I'm not asking opponents of torture, of which I am one, to assume the burden of proof that it doesn't work; I'm asking them to back away from a dangerous argument over the efficacy of torture.

Posted by Megan McArdle | August 22, 2007 2:17 PM

The problem with that, is that if you stipulate that torture does work, and raise the stakes enough, sure, anyone will torture an innocent toddler to death (see Belle's post linked above). Abstracting out all the arguments over efficacy renders the moral argument contentless.

Posted by LizardBreath | August 22, 2007 2:21 PM

Note to McCardle's sponsor at the Atlantic:

Are you a mole for the competition? Is there a more repellant, smugger child of privilege than Ms McCardle?

Posted by Steve Kelso | August 22, 2007 2:22 PM

LB has already made this point, but it warrants a much less polite reiteration. It is completely fucked up to demand that others justify why one *shouldn't* commit crimes against humanity. At the very least, all of the moral heavy-lifting has already been done; ya know, it wasn't for nuthin' that things like systemic torture and genocide are classified as crimes against humanity (or, when practiced on a smaller scale, as war crimes).

Posted by jw | August 22, 2007 2:24 PM

no. wrong.
it demonstrably does NOT work, AND it is morally wrong. you should always use BOTH ARGUMENTS IN CONJUNCTION WITH EACH OTHER.

yes, occasionally a coercive interrogation will produce a nugget of valuable information. however, the RATE AT WHICH IT DOES SO IS LOWER THAN NON-COERCIVE INTERROGATION PROCEDURES. there are many treatises on interrogation in the criminal justice section of your local public library (socialism!!! horrors!!!) that will confirm this fact, with evidence and references aplenty.

it does not work. not even theoretically. it introduces new misinformation and sources of error into the data.

that you want to hew to the moral argument alone simply means that a) you only want to argue with people who share your view, or b) you have not done your homework.

or both.

Posted by rageahol | August 22, 2007 2:25 PM

What LB said. The important thing is to debate BOTH the morality of efficacy of torture based on the actual evidence about our actual torture policy as it was actually practiced in the world, instead of TV shows, artificial hypotheticals, and "it seems to me" statements based on nothing.

Posted by Katherine | August 22, 2007 2:26 PM

"Y'all have completely misunderstood me. I mean, yes, I think you're wrong, and that torture theoretically must work sometimes, but that's mostly beside the point."

Nice try, McCardle. Won't wash. And what does that say about you as a "writer"?

Posted by Steve Kelso | August 22, 2007 2:28 PM

I'm not asking opponents of torture, of which I am one, to assume the burden of proof that it doesn't work; I'm asking them to back away from a dangerous argument over the efficacy of torture.

The problem, Megan, is that relying on the moral argument is not sufficient, because the argument on morality is not very helpful. Let's say you think technique X is immoral; I do not. Convince me that you are right and I am wrong. What's your argument?

But if you say that technique X has been tried and all the available evidence points to in ineffectiveness, that's a strong argument that we shouldn't use technique X, in a way that "I feel that technique X is immoral" isn't.

All of this is irrelevant anyway. The "torture opponents" DO use the moral argument primarily anyway. The argument basically is: "Anyone who supports Bush is an immoral, evil, torture supporter; we're more moral than you are becuase we loadly proclaim that Bush is an evil torturer and you don't." To the extent that the efficacy of certain techniques comes up, it is in the form of "Look at how evil those Bush supporters are, they know that torture doesn't work and they still want to engage in it; they must be really, truly evil people."

Posted by Al | August 22, 2007 2:30 PM

Oh, good grief, brad, I oppose torture every bit as much as you, but opposition to torture doesn't have to entail a bunch of childish ahistorical bullshit. Yes, the scenario I put forth was hyperbolic, which is why I stated as much. It was a scenario merely intnded to illustrate a point, that torture does work when the torturer is seeking specific details of generalized knowledge, and can verify his victim's statements. A weapons cache or a safehouse are less hyperbolic examples.

As to the deliberate violent misttreatment of the captured as a matter of American policy being unprecedented until now, and what seperated America from truly brutal regimes, that's just ignorant. Whenever the United States has had conflict with non-European entities, it has tended to, as a matter of doctrine, to apply brutal violence to some of those made prisoner in the conflict. Human beings are often nasty little creatures, especially towards those perceived as being of a different kind with whom they are engaged in conflict, and American policymakers, while certainly far from the worst offenders, haven't been immune to this. Examine, among various examples, how the American military personnel were encouraged to deal with the Japanese in WWII, as opposed to what was encouraged and tolerated with regards to the Germans. Yes, mistreatment well to the rear was sometimes punished, but there was a deliberate propaganda campaign designed by American policymakers to encourage military personnel in theater to be unbelievably brutal to captured Japanese, brutality which makes the current conflict seem quite mild.

Illegitimate violence directed at prisoners, by deliberate design, was far from new to America before the current Administration took office. To head off the predictable strawman, that doesn't mitigate anything this Administration has done, but lying or being ignorant about the past does not strengthen one's arguments in the present.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 2:41 PM

Let's see.. I respond to megan's previous post here pointing out that the ticking time bomb scenario doesn't really make an argument for torture, and now she comes back with a post about how people shouldn't go on about the efficacy/inefficacy of torture.. but rather should just use the moral arguments..

But wait...wasn't she just asserting a position for torture by trying to overcome the moral arguments against it by assuming torture's efficacy, a claim that most likely has no basis in reality?

Obviously--at least to me--the first argument against torture is that it is fundamentally immoral and degrades not only the torturee, but also the torturer. It is evil.. plain and simple.

However, even though this clear line has been established--we still see people making arguments along the lines of "yes, of course it's evil, but in these exceptional circumstances we must overcome these moral qualms and do it because we believe it is effective at getting something we need for the greater good.

But this second statement is not necessarily true. .. and that's what I was getting at before... There are numerous examples of actual interrogaters who argue against the use of torture because of its ineffectiveness.. (see example here, and here, and here ...) and that's what I'm getting at...

Megan is the one who originally made the assertion that most people would agree to torture in the ticking time bomb scenario... and now she doesn't want anyone to point out how wrong those people are.. not just on a moral level.. but also on a pracitical level...

I wonder why...

Posted by Morpheus Laughing | August 22, 2007 2:42 PM

"it does not work. not even theoretically. it introduces new misinformation and sources of error into the data."

Not to belabor this, but what about torture doesn't work, even theoretically? Torture to extract bogus confessions for sham trials and other such activities? Sorry, but there's a long history of them being pretty damn effective, since the confession is all the torturer wants.

Torture to produce vital information? I'll grant you that this a much trickier proposition. But if what you're saying is true, then there's no rational reason for spy agencies or militaries to fear the capture of personnel who have vital knowledge. Truth serums and other chemical interrogations, wake-sleep, and thumbscews are all forms of torture. None of them are effective, even in theory?

Posted by Claudius | August 22, 2007 2:44 PM

Megan McArdle's claim she believes torture to be wrong would be more believable were she actually to make the case directly.

After the first few days of this blog I wonder if it would not be more truthfully titled: "Intellectual Incoherence."

Posted by ndm | August 22, 2007 2:46 PM

Torture does work, if applied by properly trained people. So does coercive interrogation, with the same stipulation. I am disturbed that so many posts conflate the two, whereas there is a significant difference between them.

I'm against torture because of what it does to the torturer. Because coercive interrogation is at a much lesser "evil" level than torture, I don't fear what effect coercively interrogating someone has on the interrogator. Perhaps that's a product of my military training--I've seen coercive interrogation in practice, during training exercises, and I have first hand knowledge that it both works and doesn't produce a bad effect on the interrogator.

Back to my original stipulation--torture and coercive interrogation work only when used by properly trained people. Sure, you can get anyone to say anything if you beat on them long enough, but that's not effective if your goal is getting the truth. And in a military situation, getting the truth is what's important, not like police work, where getting a conviction, any conviction, sometimes overshadows convicting the right person.

The reason why the Supereme Court finally banned torture by the police was because the improperly trained police were not getting the truth out of their victims. That's to be expected with so many different jurisdictions in the U.S. each with their own standards of training. The same cannot be said for the military. I can't speak for the other services, but the Marines had a dedicated MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) for an Interrogator/Translator Team member. These guys were well trained and effective. They were taught coercive interrogation techniques, both psychological and physical, and they were darned good at their jobs.

So if you are going to argue against torture, don't try to do so from the position that it doesn't work. A lot of us know better.

Posted by Rex | August 22, 2007 2:49 PM

Will Allen writes: "A Japanese Admiral is captured in the last week of November 1941, by covert means, and is asked where the Imperial Japanese Fleet has gone. He refuses to tell, and is subjected to torture, and then gives some inaccurate information on December 1st. He is told that the information will be verified within 48 hours, and if it is incorrect, the torture will be more severe. He then provides the accurate information."

This is where America has had it wrong throughout its history. We should have been torturing random foreigners on a regular basis going back to at least the War of 1812.

We should also now be torturing Satanists, atheists, agnostics, Communists, and wiccans as much as possible, so that we can glean information about the coming Antichrist. If they're telling the truth we can verify it by consulting with the Book of Revelation as ably interpreted by Pastor John Hagee.

Plus we'll get to use cool techniques like bastinado and waterboarding. Yee-haw!

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | August 22, 2007 2:56 PM

If the point of the argument is to elicit the stand alone moral arguments against the use of torture, then you premise is fallacious. The premise that supposes torture can be made 100% percent effective just ignores a critical part of the whole argument.
The reason that the fourth and fifth amendments were adopted is not to protect those persons who would voluntarily confess if only the government would be allowed to ask them. Part of the reason is to avoid false confessions, but the largest part of the reason, I would assert, is to prevent the efficacy of the government being more important than individual rights. The likelihood of dying or being seriously injured as a result of crime is so much greater than being a victim of terrorism. So why is there no similar debate about repealing the fourth and fifth amendments? Again, I would assert it is because those safeguards protect us. The torture debate exists on the fallacy that the torture could never happen to us, US citizens, friendly nationals, etc. Self-interest says that our government is not more important than us, individually.

How about this premise, what if torture were acceptable for purposes of national safety, why would it not also be acceptable for personal safety, i.e. available to domestic law enforcement. How can you justify the so-called government protection of its citizens by the use of one and arbitrarily deny it use to the other? If you make a distinction, that distinction is based on the fact that one group has the right to torture individuals from another group based on nationality.

Posted by Red Shark | August 22, 2007 3:03 PM

claudius: re-read my second post.

none of them increase the good-information/bad-information ratio more than the techniques that do not rely on coercion or torture.

when you're talking about committing limited resources to checking out the data that comes from interrogation, false positives are more likely than false negatives to be a significant drain on those resources. this weakens your resilience and ability to respond to threats, because you're more likely to allocate those resources in response to nonexistent threats.

Posted by rageahol | August 22, 2007 3:07 PM

Re whether torture is an effective means to gather information: I don't claim to be an expert, so I bow to those who are. The consensus is that it's a very ineffective and unreliable method.

Re the moral argument: It would be nice to address this as a moral issue. Sadly, the pro-torture crowd tends to start screeching about an episode of 24 that they saw last week, so we have to discuss this in terms of return-on-investment--the only factor that the right wing seems to care about.

Torture isn't about getting information; it's about domination.

Posted by Joe in SF | August 22, 2007 3:21 PM

Hey, M,L&J?, if you are going to deliberately misrepresent the meaning of someone's post, at least do so in a manner which doesn't reveal your profound historical ignorance, o.k.?

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 3:33 PM

Joe, the consensus in this thread is the product of ignorance. Anybody familiar with the current techniques frequently employed in a U.K. home invasion realizes that torture can work in the right circumstances, circumstances which aren't terribly far-fetched. Tie a person to chair, and go at them with a tool set, and they'll reliably tell you where the valuables are hidden, as long as the information can be verified and the victim knows that the tools are still ready to be employed. Now, if there are no valuables, there's a lot of pointless agony, but the torturer usually enjoys the process anyways, so it truly isn't pointless.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 3:42 PM

I'm a little disappointed in the level of discourse here. I had expected the Atlantic to attract more rational comments than, say, the Daily Kos.

One exception (though not the only one) was the comment by Rex above. He wants to ditinguish between "torture" and "coercive interrogation." I think that's crucial. Let us all stipulate that torture ought not to be practiced by the United States. That leaves some room for coercive techniques that fall short of torture. Surely a few hours of unpleasant music or 15 seconds dunked underwater doesn't constitute torture.

So we ought to try to draw a line, based upon experience and rational reflection, between accptable coercion and torture.

Posted by isocrates | August 22, 2007 3:42 PM

isocrates--

Our own war crimes tribunals after WWII disagreed with your take on waterboarding quite strongly. They called it the "water cure," and a war crime.

Posted by Jeff in Texas | August 22, 2007 3:46 PM

The problem with your apporach, rageahol, is that you have then in large measure based your opposition to torture on the difficulty in verifying false positives. That is, as soon as a situation arises in which verification becomes simple enough, one of your main arguments against torture collapses. Thus, the torturer has an avenue to advance his cause, namely to argue that cost of verification has dropped low enough to make torture a reasonable behavior. It seems better to me to simply say that torture is never to be allowed, and thus there is no reason to calculate or discuss it's efficacy in any situation.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 3:52 PM

A Ouija board is right some of the time too. Provided of course, that you can verify the information...

Torture should never be the default method of interrogation. If it is truly needed, then the torturer should be ready and willing to defend himself in court over it. It should never be legal.

Posted by Steph | August 22, 2007 3:56 PM

steve kelso,

No.

Posted by keatssycamore | August 22, 2007 3:56 PM

Actually, torture (by a properly trained person) is about getting information. The domination involved in torture is merely part of the psychological aspect of obtaining information. The same thing applies to coercive interrogation.

In past threads, we sort of came to a consensus that torture involved breaking skin or breaking bones; the sort of physical injury that most people agree is truly torture. We were somewhat conflicted on defining coercive interrogation, with some moonbats claiming that anything that was perceived to be hurtful was torture, which the rest of us disagreed with. I mean, wouldn't one agree that a valid definition of torture would involve something happening to a greater degree than happened to most of us on the playground?

So maybe the discussion should be twofold: (1) is there ever a justification for torture to obtain information, and (2) under what circumstances is coercive interrogation permissible?

The "24" crowd believes that torture is justified when the stakes are high enough. That tends to be my feeling, but my concern is, who decides when the stakes are high enough? If we put our faith in Jack Bauer, we impliedly have to put our faith in those people who hired and trained him. Thirty years ago I had faith in the recruiters and trainers; nowadays, I'm not so sure.

I also believe that coercive interrogation is permissible when national security is at stake. Again, the problem I have is, who decides? We sent troops into harms way in Bosnia and Kosovo, and there has yet to be a U.S. national security interest articulated for those decisions. (McCain articulated a national security interest in seeing the job through once we deployed (i.e., to save the NATO alliance), but to date no one has been successful in articulating a national security interest in our involvement there. Whereas a national security interest has been clearly stated with respect to both Afganistan and Iraq, even if people disagree about it. My point is that if politicians deploy troops in harms way even when there is no national security interest at stake, why should we trust them to decide when coercive interrogation is permissible?

Posted by Rex | August 22, 2007 3:58 PM

I, for one, think the effectiveness of torture is pretty relevant to any discussion of its morality. The fact that torture is not particularly effective makes makes it a pretty easy call… the potential harm of allowing the state to sanction torture far outweigh the potential benefits, and torture should therefore be considered immoral.

If, however, torture were 100% effective, it would be a much tougher call.

Any moral system that doesn’t consider real world consequences is, in the end, a pretty strange and pointless form of morality...

Posted by RC | August 22, 2007 4:09 PM

rageahol:

"none of them increase the good-information/bad-information ratio more than the techniques that do not rely on coercion or torture."

This CAN be right if you're talking about torture to extract vital information, especially if the policy of torture / verify is a widespread one. But with all due respect, if the object of the torture is to extract sham confessions or intimidate oppressed populations, the good info / bad info cost-effectiveness ratio is totally irrelevant. It all depends on the goal of the torturer. In that light, making the utilitarian argument against torture (it doesn't work anyway) is risky--because it DOES work in many cases.

Posted by Claudius | August 22, 2007 4:10 PM

Will Allen asks: "Hey, M,L&J?, if you are going to deliberately misrepresent the meaning of someone's post, at least do so in a manner which doesn't reveal your profound historical ignorance, o.k.?"

I'd be glad to do that if there had been anything profound in your initial post, Willie me boy, but there wasn't. It was the single most inane thing I've read on the Intertubes this week, and that's saying something, since I've seen posts by Jonah Goldberg and the Gang of Wienies at the Corner.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | August 22, 2007 4:11 PM

will allen: see my first post, in re: externalities. even if the immediate cost of verifying the information drops low enough to permit torture (and one would think that if this were the case, it would also be easy enough to check each possibility without the need for torture, as in the home invasion robbery example cited), the externalities of having someone more inured to that sort of abuse of power are far greater than the immediate risk of harm. look into behavioral research on punishment - its reinforcing effects on the punisher, when they are reinforced by getting valuable information from the punished, tend to push the punisher into thinking that punishment, or torture in this case, is the appropriate way to deal with interpersonal issues far more often than is actually the case.

and in any case, i would dispute that any policy of allowing torture in an interrogation is liable to be broadened over time, further exacerbating the externality issue as well as the bad-intel issue. the issue is one of policy, not isolated incidents. there will always be isolated incidents of torture both here and abroad, but the codification of these practices as legitimate is what harms intel as well as the psyches of the torturers.

(and if the ticking-time-bomb scenario comes up, and someone illegally tortures a perp AND ACTUALLY IS ABLE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT WITH THAT INTEL, then they are still breaking the law and should be tried as such - no jury would convict them anyway.)

Posted by rageahol | August 22, 2007 4:15 PM

That said, some of Will Allen's subsequent posts actually made sense... but not that first one.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | August 22, 2007 4:15 PM

isocrates writes: "So we ought to try to draw a line, based upon experience and rational reflection, between acceptable coercion and torture."

I think experience and rational reflection has shown us to be incapable of drawing the line. The use of the phrase "acceptable coercion," as opposed to say "interrogation," immediately shows the user to be incapable of drawing the line between torture and torture lite.

An Iraqi General was allowed to die while subjected to "acceptable interrogation" by being stuffed upside down in a sleeping bag. (Where'e the harm in that, after all, since children do this all the time.) As they smothered the General to death I doubt his murderers cared where the bright line between acceptable coercion and torture was drawn.

Posted by ndm | August 22, 2007 4:20 PM

Isocrates,

Waterboarding is torture; our own government condemns the practice as torture when reporting about human rights abuses committed in countries other than the US. Our government doesn't recognize waterboarding as torture only when it uses this technique.

Waterboarding is more than simply dunking a person underwater. It is an act designed to make the subject feel like he is drowning; i.e. to make person feel like he is dying underwater. I don't know about you, but an act that makes feel like I'm dying from a lack of air is torture in my book.

Posted by eltoro | August 22, 2007 4:23 PM

I'm sorry M,L,&J, that my first post wasn't more plainly labeled as hyperbole, thus allowing you to recognize it as such, instead of as advocacy for randomly kidnapping and toruring foreigners. I will endeavor to be more obvious for you in the future.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 4:38 PM

We pretty much agree, rageahol, although I think you still miscalculate the predictability of verification's cost. In the home invasion example, for example, finding hidden valuables in a home can be quite time consumimg, which is one reason why it is becoming increasingly common for such thugs to torture their victims; you'd have to be truly crazy to not give up their location immediately with your fingers between the blades of a bolt cutter. Similarly, someone has to be a really, really, really, dedicated cadre to not reveal the locations of easily verified weapons caches, if the cadre is in the hands of a skilled torturer. Some are, but a lot aren't.

I wholly agree, however, that torture cannot be effectively regulated and thus, individual exceptions aside, it becomes a net negative, in terms of defeating the enemy. I just would rather not go so far as to make the claim that it "never works", for in may experience, making falsifiable claims does not advance one's advocacy.

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 4:52 PM

Yes, silly naif, if you take a person who knows nothing about what you're asking, and you torture them, they'll start out lying to stop the torture, but eventually they'll start producing cosmic truths that answer your queries, even though they didn't originally know the answers.

Why, I bet we could torture Ms. McArdle and find out the cure for cancer, the DJIA at the end of 2009, and the answer for why you have a paid blogging gig while the far more rational and talented Gary Farber can't pay his rent.

Ya think, Meg? Do you have these mysterious truths tucked away in your subconscious, just waiting to be liberated via strenuous waterboarding?

Posted by Jon H | August 22, 2007 5:00 PM

Also, the effectiveness of torture really has to be questioned when we know it's very effective at identifying people who are satan-screwing, spell-casting, baby-eating witches, when such people don't actually exist.

Posted by Jon H | August 22, 2007 5:09 PM

How fascists are made:

After all, the argument for coersion is quite compelling. The United States government has a sacred duty to protect its citizens.

First, no, the US government has no real "sacred" duty. It takes a civic-minded pledge. Moreover, the sole pledge anyone in government takes -- from a Social Security desk jockey to the President is NOT to protect its citizens, it's to protect the Constitution.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

When did Americans become such whiny, ahistorical, pissants? We have a fascinating and proud history -- one that STARTS with the notion that we are a nation of laws, not men.

Yet with one attack, the fear-soaked cowards of the "Give Torture a Chance" crowd hide behind an all-mighty state where its torturers are good and noble, not the failure of the very foundations of the state.

Hideous post. Our republic won't survive you fascist fucks.

Posted by Jay B. | August 22, 2007 5:13 PM

will allen: our dispute seems to hinge on the definition of "works"

it "works" in isolated instances, in the very short term, and less frequently than rational, level-headed, well-characterized interrogation techniques. unfortunately as humans we tend to respond more to isolated instances of success or windfalls than we do to overall frequency - see also: lottery. it does not "work" as a policy, since for it to provide more good information than bad, would require the interrogators to always have the "right" person, and always be in a position to verify the information immediately, while the subject is still under questioning. it also does not "work" as a policy since it makes monsters of interrogators over the long term. so, no, it _never_ works _as policy_.

Posted by rageahol | August 22, 2007 5:20 PM

At least we managed to use torture to get rid of the witches. Their teats were cold!

Posted by darrelplant | August 22, 2007 5:24 PM

Y'all are pretty funny. I've yet to see a single comment even note that torture is illegal. Not even just a little illegal, but barred by the US constitution, federal statute, Article III of the Geneva Convention, etc. etc. etc.

So here's a quick argument against torture.

It's illegal.

Breaking the law, willfully and knowingly no less, is immoral.

Torture is therefore immoral.

Now if I can just get someone to say that it's not always immoral to break the law...

Posted by Brady | August 22, 2007 5:26 PM

Efficacy of torture -

Megan, from the K-Lo slot at the Atlantic says don't argue to efficacy of torture today because someday it might work.

God, please save us from our discourse.

Posted by matt | August 22, 2007 5:34 PM

Anyway, this posting is an unbroken stream of bloodthirsty vapidity and revolting 'you hippies are hypocrites when you argue to practicality' posturing, but this stands out:

"Nor is it obvious to me that the quality of information is likely to be lower than that obtained by other means: yes, people will say anything to avoid torture, but they'll also say anything to avoid imprisonment"

This is empirical fact. This is not something that needs to be made 'obvious to Megan' to be true.

Posted by matt | August 22, 2007 5:42 PM

matt writes: "Megan, from the K-Lo slot at the Atlantic says don't argue to efficacy of torture today because someday it might work."

This makes me wonder if the Bushpigs think it works NOW - because they have Maury Povich's lie detector squad down in the dungeons spot-verifying the information extracted from the prisoners.

Who would put that sort of genius beyond the sparkling abilities shown daily by the clowns since January 21st, 2001?

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | August 22, 2007 5:43 PM

The fantasists who can imagine different degrees of coercion and think that anything said under certain types of duress can be in anyway reliable have obviously never been tuned up or never had the opportunity to do the same, though i'll bet some of the real serious churchgoers in the group are just itching for the day when they can live out their Jack Bauer dreams

I was something of a criminal in my college days and on into my early 20's ('89-'95) after my father died and my day job wasn't enough to take care of my mom and keep the bills paid....Anyway, as a result, i found myself in a few of the types of situations that still make certain films difficult to watch because of the memories and associations they dredge up

Physical torture is useless except as a purely punitive measure, people will say any goddamned thing in the world to make the pain stop unless they are crazier than the person who is working them over. I say this from having been on both sides of some serious beatings, so unlike the folks here who want so badly for someone to validate their Jack Bauer fantasies, i actually have some practical base of knowledge from whence i speak. and the notion of "I'll hurt you even worse if you are lying to me" is a farce, the idea is to hurt them as badly as possible just short of killing them anyway, the subject is either going to welcome death or just lapse into near catatonia from the pain (i did on a couple of different occasions)

So you'll have to excuse me while i laugh at some of the rationalizations i've seen in this thread.

[on a closing note, the fear of certain people i suspected i might meet in prison was the most effective coercion anyone ever applied to me]

Posted by SpaceMonkeyX | August 22, 2007 5:47 PM

Oh. My. God.

I don't know what's worse, that someone got paid to write this abomination, or that a bunch of people here seem to be arguing dispassionately about the efficacy of torture.

Sick people rule our discourse.

Posted by commie atheist | August 22, 2007 5:54 PM

I'm a little disappointed in the level of discourse here. I had expected the Atlantic to attract more rational comments than, say, the Daily Kos.
Funny, I'd expected the Atlantic to employ more rational bloggers than Megatron & the rest.

Posted by M. Bouffant | August 22, 2007 5:55 PM

Megan, you'd be better off to drop your first paragraph completely. If you start off by calmly discussing the efficacy of torture, people aren't going to get around to reading your second paragraph. QED.

It's like Richard Nixon discussing the various ways the Watergate burglars' hush money could be raised, and then only at the end saying "it'd be wrong, that's for sure." By that time, it's too late. You should never have entertained the topic as one where reasonable people could disagree in the first place.

Posted by liberalrob | August 22, 2007 6:10 PM

SpaceMonkey, you're either a liar, or you've never had anything worthwhile to give up that could be verified, or never tortured anybody who had something to give up that could be verified. Say, when a home invader ties a victim to a chair, and gets out the pliers, and asks where the cash is hidden, d'ya' think the homeowner is going to say just "any goddamn thing" to avoid the fingernails to be ripped out, or is the homeowner going to say where the money actually is?

Posted by Will Allen | August 22, 2007 6:12 PM

Dear Ms. McArdle,

Decent people take up any argument available against torture. You say it's morally wrong and you know it's being practiced by our own government, yet you wa