If the claim that torture is less effective than thought, unreliable, a human rights violation, and therefore not useful is true, why is it still used by the CIA, Mossad, and MI6?
If the claim that torture is less effective than thought, unreliable, a human rights violation, and therefore not useful is true, why is it still used by the CIA, Mossad, and MI6?
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As someone who studied criminal justice I can tell you it’s mostly about tradition and the illusion of control. Agencies keep doing it because they think it projects strength even though the data shows it’s basically useless. Pretty messed up when you think about it.
Mi6 doesnt use it
The drama.
Why wouldn’t they? Maybe it gets the desired effect Of a made up confession, justifies an action that was already planned or whatever they want. Maybe it works 5% of the time. Broadly they dont face repercussions or face accountability for their actions. So it’s worth it.
I mean the some of the folks from abu ghraib got nothing but a slap on the wrist for some of IMO the most abhorrent torture that’s likely ever happened.
Cruelty is the point.
It rather depends. If you can immediately validate the information (e.g. what is the code to this safe) I suspect it is very effective. If you have to take the information on trust it’s probably worse than useless
This might be a surprise to you but the Geneva conventions aren’t always followed. Some people take pleasure from hurting others and couldn’t care less what information they obtain.
Torture is just hyper-conditional.
One of the big problems is that many people just don’t know anything and honestly this is a bigger problem then you think because anyone doing an operation with any sort of mind to operational security is only going to tell the personnel mission relevant details, which may or may not be useful when you have someone captured after the fact. Sure, technically it’s not a ‘problem’ in a sense, but what I mean is it’s not helping at that point.
People can also make up things under duress, etc. They can be unreliable narrators. There’s a lot of caveats.
EDIT: To edit since I didn’t do a good job finishing the explanation. It *CAN be* highly effective, assuming certain conditions. So it’s more jus like another tool in the toolbox type of thing.
Also, this isn’t going to be your gold standard for information gathering, but if you have nothing else, than you have nothing else to lose. You can always readjust your approach with better information/intelligence.
Ineffective as an intelligence gathering tool maybe, but very effective as a terrorism tool.
Torture is demonstrably effective if the information can be quickly checked and the victim knows it will be checked. One example is torturing someone for their ATM PIN. This is done effectively so frequently that we barely consider it news.
Any sort of human intelligence that can’t be verified until well after the fact is inherently unreliable. Trained interrogators are indeed somewhat better at getting useful intel than torturers, but you can very easily end up in a situation where you have more suspects than trained interrogators. Then less efficient methods are used.
Because humans aren’t actually rational actors. Not even scary humans who work for groups like the CIA, Mossad and MI6.
People feel like it works, or like they need to do it, or just because they’re sickos who want to hurt people like that. So they do it.
Most secrete services are trying to move away from it because of the inefficacy.
The most effective is to have a belief that you torture, and then you interrogate people without torture. A side effect of this is that ordinary people believe that you practice torture even if you don’t
Because it isn’t ineffective. Questions just have to be phrased in the right way, so as not to lead to a certain, obvious, answer.
So torturing for confession will get you the confession, but it won’t mean anything. But asking for particular information with open questions will be effective.
I feel pretty grubby after giving my opinion on this.
TL:DR torture bad
They do it because they are sadistic and use patriotism as an excuse to do shitty things.
Because human beings are just cruel scumbags to people they see as their enemies.
Enhanced interrogation techniques are very effective in producing verifiable information. Names, dates, and information that can be corroborated.
When used solely or individually without verification, then it is to be considered unreliable with no way to know for certain.
Verifiable intelligence obtained via enhanced interrogation is effective. Putting 100% trust in something that can not be checked is not.
However morally repugnant we may find enhanced interrogation techniques, they produce results quickly. But should not be used for tortures sake. The security services don’t resolve threats by pulling finger nails or cutting off digits – but waterboarding, sensory deprivation, truth serum etc, these methods are sanctioned.
Beating the crap out of someone or torture isn’t an interrogation technique that our security services employ.
You are not going to get a good response on this website on any sensitive topic you ask, I’ll eat the downvotes for it. If you want the actual answer it’s because torture is actually extremely effective. You’re going to get a lot of political or emotional responses instead of anything based it reality in the “NoStupidQuestions” sub for some reason
Question, hold, verify, question – Torture
Torture is and is seen as ineffective when the wanted results are not quantifiable. If I ask for x location, torture you and then verify the results while holding you then that’s an effective process. If the results are poor then the torture is ineffective and in vacuum the torturer has just abused someone for no reason.
There’s a comment above mine about MI6 not using torture methods which is the most naive thing ever. Every entity that seeks answers “tortures” in some capacity when seeking data, either through emotional, physical or neglectful abuse. We just draw a line somewhere and depict that point as “torture”
Torture can easily be justifiable through hypotheticals but it is almost always immoral and unethical because of the assumed initial guilt and withholding of information.
It’s unarguable that Torture is/can be effective, but when it is not the gravity of failure is higher than just confining someone. Due to this people will take a total sum stance on it, but regardless of personal beliefs it can and often is effective.
Basically just assume that if every single OGA/spy/threat based agency in the world uses torture then it’s more than likely effective in some capacity, even if it’s not the MOST effective.
Like Reddit I like to assume that I’m right and the smartest person in the room even in the face of thousands of people but I can take a step back and understand that probably isn’t the case most of the time, even if I don’t like the answer
The top comment is essentially “because evil” I think everyone here who can think critically knows that probably isn’t the case, but easier to just not think
The literature on it isn’t that clear, you can’t exactly get a double blind study where you get people to submit to torture.
Theres been mixed data when they do manage to collect anything. What they do find is that people without information are likely to make something up to stop the event but that’s not to say people with information won’t share it. Infamously the 9-11 mastermind was subjected to waterboarding and supposedly gave useful information after not responding to other interrogation methods.
I should clarify that I’m not making this statement to defend the use of torture morally, but rather to at least attempt to make sure we’re talking about the same set of facts.
What does effective mean exactly? I can’t imagine if someone being tortured has the information you need you couldn’t get it out of them.
Also anyone being tortured is being tortured secret because I’m pretty sure it’s not the kind of thing made public. So how do you conduct a study and publish anything meaningful to the public?
You can’t catalog all the instances of torture that worked vs ones that didn’t work because you’d then have to expose things like the study methodology and all that.
Anyway I don’t know but my gut says it’s effective if you have information to be tortured out of you.
It’s not effective at getting the truth.
It is effective at getting confessions. Just not true ones. And if you don’t care whether the confessions are true or not that may not be a problem for you.
Because those torturers don’t care about commiting a crime and breaking international law.
Is like asking why police kill people that aren’t a treat
Because depending on what you actually want from them it does actually work.
Also sadism.
Also also, researching torture is kinda difficult. It does yield accurate information sometimes but it doesn’t always. Its a mixed bag
Torture is ineffective for producing reliable information. However it is effective for (1) getting people to say what you want them to say, including confessing to anything and everything (2) terrifying potential opposition in the population you seek to control.
Why is it used now? Aside from reasons 1 & 2, above (or perhaps in addition to 1 and 2), it is used because the interrogators are stupid and/or sadistic.
For the lolz.
Because it’s fun
The vast majority of people don’t see all human life as equal or valuable. Torture doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s against people that they are repeatedly told and shown are the “bad guys”. And quite often it’s absolutely true too. Not a lot of torture of random cashiers or store clerks. Quite a bit of torture of people who blow up children, burn down hospitals, etc. Not all of course but if we’re talking about intelligence agencies they’re not going to waste time and resources on people who can’t feed them intel.
The effectiveness is sometimes just a matter of fear. The next person brought in sees a cut off toe and a bunch of sharp instruments and they’re more likely to immediately talk. If they’ve spent days hearing screaming from the next room they’re more likely to talk. If they get released and tell everyone what happened it makes the next person picked up more likely to talk.
Torture doesn’t work but fear is a huge psychological motivator. And not just to talk. If you escape somehow but you knew it was happening you’re less likely to keep up the fight. More likely to cut a deal. Turn on your organization. Things like that. And if it didn’t have a strong return on the investment, believe me these groups would stop.
Polygraphs aren’t effective either, some countries still use it. The military-adjecent agencies are terrifying tbh
Because it does work for verifiable information. It doesn’t work if the person has a reasonable expectation they can get away with lying, but if they know you’ll check and come back then it can work. Not justifying it, just a fact.
Because fear works.
Are you more afraid to protest the Saudi government or the Dutch?
Torture isn’t effective at producing actionable intelligence, but it does serve to intimidate a population into compliance (at least temporarily). This is mostly why intelligence agencies use it.
It also serves as a sort of “gang initiation” for agents and operatives. Making someone commit torture breaks down empathy and provides a common experience, increasing both obedience and group cohesion.
They typically don’t. I’ve seen an interrogation of a terrorist in Afghanistan. It looks nothing like what you’ve seen in movies. It was quick, emotionally charged, and effective. The investigator didn’t lay a finger on the guy.
As someone who has anti-interrogation training before, I can give some insights into this. Torture as a method of getting information is good in getting a lot of initial information, but as some have noted, you’ll get a lot of chaff along with the wheat. Torture is “just” there to give you the initial collection of information and to identify people with loose lips, the “2nd pass” of information collecting is then to separate the genuine stuff from the nonsense that desperate people toss out.
This is why during a war, you are taught only to give name, rank and serial number and SHUT UP during POW processing. In a war, both you and your enemy are going to be flooded with POWs and there is something called an LTIOV or Last Time Information Of Value. The interrogators are going to be pressured to produce results fast and to do that, they have to target the chatty ones. Which means that the more stubborn you are during processing, the more likely you are to be tossed to one side because there are going to be easier people to provoke to give information. You know who is most likely to give out information? The “human rights” activist. By breaking from the “Name, rank, serial number” protocol, they have already shown that they can be “twisted” from their training or that they did not have that training in the first place and are willing to “talk”.
So yes, while torture is less effective than thought, it is by no means *ineffective*. You just need to sieve out the real information from the desperate nonsense that people give out under duress.
“I cannot answer that question, Comrade”.
Because they’re sadists.
Because they like to hurt people. Quoting Nineteen Eighty-Four:
> Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
Torture works.
Violence works.
People just want to act like it doesn’t, yet everyone invests in a military.
GTA5 got flak when it came out for the torture scene but it’s the most effective demonstration I’ve ever gotten that torture is for the pleasure of the torturer, not any material value.
I will add another option. Many say torture can get innocents to say anything the torturer wants to make it stop. And sometimes, during an interrogation, the interrogators do not actually want the truth. Just a scapegoat or a justification. Join the two, you get why it can still be used.
Police needing someone to blame even if not the actual culprit. Show trials of political opponents needing some sort of confession. Invasions or other controversial needing some sort of justification, casus belli.
The truth doesn’t matter.
Counterpoint: Torture is super effective.
You don’t torture in order to learn information. You torture in order to get a false confession or false accusation. Almost 100% effective.
It’s ineffective for information, but it is very effective as a tool for control and intimidation through terror.
Torture may not be effective at getting valid information, but it’s really good at frightening anyone who hears of the torture and at encouraging and satiating sadistic impulses in your own enforcers.
It is effective if you want to get some specific information.
But if you want this person to work for you, be your asset, bring you numerous more information and facilitate a bigger, deeper game plan for you; you need a different strategy.
It’s impossible to build such a relationship after torturing him.
But sometimes, they don’t need that or they have reasons to believe that will not work. The only thing they need is just a piece of information. In that case, torture is the easiest solution since early ages.
I read a story told by a victim of the Khmer Rouge who said that torture was never about finding or discovering the truth, it was about hurting the victim to the point that they would confess to any and everything, thus giving the torturers the confession they needed to “judicially justify” the victims execution.
As to why the CIA, Mossad, and MI6 use torture…maybe it is the same reason as the Khmer rouge…a means to an end.
Because sometimes all people want are answers. Even if those answers aren’t true
Define ineffective. It is very effective to get people to say what the torturer wants them to say in order to justify what the torturer wants to do. It’s just ineffective at getting the truth. I don’t think that getting the truth is really their ultimate goal.