Tuesday, January 27, 2009

But It Doesn't Work!

I stumbled across this news story from back in November. In England three burglars forced their way into Maurice Nixon's home at gunpoint.
The robbers tied him up, knocked some of his teeth out and pierced his legs with a screwdriver to find out where he stashed his valuables.
Why would they bother with such a thing? Didn't they know that torture is an ineffective method of getting useful information? Haven't they been listening to pundits, bloggers and interrogation "experts"? Why would they waste their time? I guess they were just uninformed and uneducated. Maybe they watched too much television and somehow got the idea torture would work. So what happened? Did they leave empty handed? No, actually they took off with
an unknown amount of cash and jewellery
They needed specific, verifiable information and they got it fast, with torture. Incidents of torture being used to successfully extract secrets have occurred many times throughout history, and similar accounts show up periodically in the news. 

I know it probably seems that I'm beating this issue to death -- no pun intended. But the illogical and factually untrue assertion that torture does not work is repeated endlessly. This is just another example of reality to keep in mind, the next time someone living in their own fantasy world of wishful thinking tries to pretend that torture is always ineffective. Unfortunately, there are some situations where torture not only works, but also may be the fastest and most effective way of extracting certain types of information. If the information in question can be independently confirmed, it doesn't stop being useful simply because the interrogator used a brutal, inhumane method to obtain it.  

13 comments:

  1. Very concise and accurate observation. I will agree that torture does work - that's why it's been used for so long. I'm just reading a book at the moment - The book of Unholy Mischief - which has a scene in which a woman is horrifically tortured by inquisitors from the Vatican - and when she is on the point of death, they bring her husband in (who was actually the one they wanted to question.)

    Torture IS an effective form of interrogation. However, it's immoral and disgusting, too. No civilised society should stoop to that level. I'm kind of disappointed how the Jack Bauer mentality has kind of become the justification for torture in America.

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  2. I like your blog a lot but this is where I (consistently) break from you. I don't think that citing this sort of anecdotal evidence proves anything other than the obvious. Sure, if someone breaks into my house and says that that're going to stab me unless I give them my jewelry, I'm going to hand the stuff over. And I think we've also agreed that the problem lies in that people would probably not wield this sort of power with any kind of restraint and abuse would be rampant -- morally wrong or not. Given that sort of absolute power over another human being it would cease to be effective because once police A) were allowed to torture and B) figured out that "hey, it works!" they'd begin to use it in more and more situations until eventually... blah blah blah

    I do not however agree that torture works in all scenarios. It probably works well when I have an item hidden and someone wants the location of it. That seems like a simple linear chain of events. But it probably breaks down the minute you introduce any sort of abstract arguments, even yes-no questions. Are you a terrorist? Are you a racist? Are you a cheat? I suspect that in many situations where someone is unsure, doesn't know or has convinced themselves otherwise that the interrogator will come up with wrong or incorrect information. Abuse will increase and the signal-to-noise ratio will become more and more of a factor

    I just don't think it's safe to say, "look it works! But it's wrong so we shouldn't do it!" It seems like you're just trying to prove a silly point to liberals... kind of how Republicans keep warning about how the Democrats are going to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine in Broadcasting when I really don't think that's the case. It just seems too manufactured to me. I doubt that any reasonable person would disagree that the form of torture you describe above is effective. However, to claim that it proves that all torture is effective, is, in my opinion, a logical fallacy.

    I should also say -- I haven't had a chance to comment on some of your more recent blog entries but I think they've been quite excellent. I'm probably a bit more to the left than you (if you want to use a linear scale) but I frequently agree with your viewpoints and find them quite interesting and even persuasive.

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  3. Roland,

    "Torture IS an effective form of interrogation. However, it's immoral and disgusting, too."

    The moral argument against torture is definitely one of the strongest. However, I am one of those people who believes that virtually all rules have exceptions. Who decides when an exception should be made is the big question though.

    Psychic,

    " I don't think that citing this sort of anecdotal evidence proves anything other than the obvious."

    That's true, but unfortunately the obvious is not obvious to many people. Those people are the target of this post.

    "the problem lies in that people would probably not wield this sort of power with any kind of restraint"

    Yes, the corrupting influence of torture on the torturer himself is undeniable. That's another strong argument against torture. The government can't be trusted not to abuse its power. Do we want to trust them with the power to torture?

    "I do not however agree that torture works in all scenarios."

    Definitely not. It's a form of interrogation. Its effectiveness depends on the interrogator, the interrogatee, the information in question, and any other relevant factors.

    "it probably breaks down the minute you introduce any sort of abstract arguments"

    Yes, it has a high probability of producing false results/false confessions if you are simply fishing for information, if you ask the wrong questions, or if you are trying to confirm your preexisting incorrect belief about what the prisoner knows. Although that can be true of other interrogation methods as well.

    "I doubt that any reasonable person would disagree that the form of torture you describe above is effective"

    But they do. People make blanket statements that torture doesn't work. And those who point out the obvious and give examples are often dismissed out of hand.

    "However, to claim that it proves that all torture is effective, is, in my opinion, a logical fallacy."

    I'm not claiming that, and yes, it would be a logical fallacy. Torture is a method of interrogation with its own particular set of advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes it can work, sometimes it doesn't.

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  4. "unfortunately the obvious is not obvious to many people."

    Maybe it's not so obvious even. I'm sure even the "where are your jewels, I'm going to stab you repeatedly until you tell me..." works in certain cases. And you cite evidence that it does. But there are some strong willed people out there that probably wouldn't tell you the name of their pet hamster even if you cut out their tongue and put their arms and legs in a meat grinder. Besides the risk of false-positives, there's a risk of the interrogator coming to the conclusion that, "oops, this guy really doesn't know where the nuclear explosive is stashed" when in reality the guy is stubborn and has a high pain threshold. When someone's breaking point results in killing them you might not get any information at all.

    I guess the problem I had is that the message I took from the original post is that you're trying to say that torture works when in reality it probably only works in select cases -- primarily when the person realizes they lose more than they gain by withholding the info. If you threaten me I'll give you my jewelry (I have none of any note by the way -- just a cheap, black wedding ring that nobody would ever want anyway). But if I went to all the trouble to plant a bomb and it was going to go off tomorrow and I felt strongly about the cause and I was psycho enough I might try harder to resist the torturers advances. I'm sure you can look around and find many instances where a person resisted torture, even at its most brutal.

    Maybe it's just better to play one of those "I'm not looking" or "I know what you're thinking" games.

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  5. "Maybe it's not so obvious even."

    It's obvious that it can and has worked. That doesn't mean that it will always work, even in a situation like that one in England. You are right. Everyone is different.

    "When someone's breaking point results in killing them you might not get any information at all."

    True, although that's more applicable to certain types of torture than others.

    "in reality it probably only works in select cases"

    Yes, and that's true of pretty much any interrogation method. Interrogations depend on many factors. Different methods have different strengths and weaknesses.

    "I'm sure you can look around and find many instances where a person resisted torture, even at its most brutal."

    Also true. Again, I'm not arguing that it works in every case. Just that it is in fact a viable method of interrogation. No method of interrogation always works.

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  6. How do you know if something such as torture will work, in a given situation, unless you try it?

    People also say the death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent. I say it's because it isn't used often enough or quick enough after sentencing. It does guarantee that the individual put to death won't be harming anyone else, ever again. Even other scumbags on death row.

    Compared to what the interrogated are accused of doing, in the case of terrorists, is it really torture?

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  7. Dan,

    "How do you know if something such as torture will work, in a given situation, unless you try it?"

    True, but that's a purely utilitarian argument. There are legitimate objections that the overall consequences of using torture outweigh any benefits in most cases.

    "People also say the death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent. I say it's because it isn't used often enough or quick enough after sentencing."

    Yes, the death penalty not being a deterrent is another argument that I find illogical. Aside from the point you make, we don't have enough information to really determine the effectiveness of that kind of deterrence. It's pretty much impossible to tell how many people have NOT done something, and why they didn't do it.

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  8. Hey UNRR - I simply think that when society is reduced to torture in order to protect itself, it's effectively ceased to become a society worth protecting.

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  9. Roland,

    "I simply think that when society is reduced to torture in order to protect itself, it's effectively ceased to become a society worth protecting."

    I'd have to answer that with another "yes, but." It would probably take me another post (at least) to explain exactly what I mean.

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  10. In a break-in situation, everyone knows that there is valuable information to be had. It is a matter of forcing the person to reveal the location of the goods that all know are present.

    (To assume otherwise is to assume extremely stupid burglars who didn't bother casing the house at all; or the fanciful scenario in which someone has a house with NOTHING worth stealing in it.)

    This assumption does not reliably obtain when government officials are holding a *suspect.* The suspect may or may not have worthwhile information to reveal.

    You are wrong to assume the authorities don't make mistakes in rounding up suspects, whether criminal suspects or terrorist suspects.

    In cases where, for one reason or another, everyone present has *absolute certainty* that high value information is being hidden by the suspect, torture is still wrong. But if the choice is between the wrong of torture and the wrong of, say, losing a populated city to a mushroom cloud, then an agent in real time could be excused for choosing the lesser wrong.

    We have an established legal method for accounting for cases like that -- executive pardon power. In such a case, the agent should put his case before the executive -- yes, I did it, and here is exactly why -- and the executive should have the courage to take the political heat for it. End of "problem."

    We should NOT change the law to reflect the rare exceptions.

    On a tangent: if waterboarding is not torture, do you expect President Obama to issue post facto pardons of the Germans and Japanese who were convicted for it? Did you petition President Bush to do so? I'm sure their families would love to see that public statement made -- to have the names of their loved ones cleared for what was, apparently, never a crime. Yes?

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  11. Dan,

    "This assumption does not reliably obtain when government officials are holding a *suspect.* The suspect may or may not have worthwhile information to reveal."

    There are plenty of analogous situations. But yes, if someone doesn't have worthwhile information, you aren't going to get it -- by any method.

    "You are wrong to assume the authorities don't make mistakes in rounding up suspects, whether criminal suspects or terrorist suspects."

    Why would I assume that? I assume the opposite. Of course they make mistakes.

    "We should NOT change the law to reflect the rare exceptions."

    I don't want the law changed to legalize torture.

    "On a tangent: if waterboarding is not torture"

    In my opinion waterboarding is definitely a form of torture. But I am far less concerned with whether or not something counts as torture, than on who is being tortured and why -- a point that I think is often ignored by those who are against torture in all cases without exception.

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  12. Okay, so you've proven that when practiced on a civilian, torture works in extracting information about property. I'm not sure what the political applicability of this is; most torture skeptics say that a) in almost all situations other things work just as well, and b) in the others, involving an especially committed religious fanatic protecting information about his cause, torture won't work either.

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  13. My last response was addressed to Dan when it should have been Dale.

    Alon,

    "I'm not sure what the political applicability of this is"

    There are plenty of similar situations that involve specific information that can be verified independently. Just a few obvious examples... Where is your arms cache? Where did you plant the bomb? What is the password for this laptop? Where are the bodies buried? Even more speculative information can be confirmed by independent means. Torture might be the most effective way to get information, or it might be the least effective. It depends on the situation.

    "most torture skeptics say that a) in almost all situations other things work just as well"

    That would depend entirely on each individual situation. In my opinion, most of those who argue against torture fail to recognize that is is just another type of interrogation method with its own strengths and weaknesses. The only difference is that its weaknesses also include negative effects that go far beyond the technical aspects of interrogation. In other words, the drawbacks of using it almost always outweigh the technical advantages.

    "in the others, involving an especially committed religious fanatic protecting information about his cause, torture won't work either."

    Again, that's highly debatable. Someone can be willing to die for a cause, but have some other fear or weakness that can be exploited. Fear is powerful motivating force. So is pain.

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