Comments on: Alas, torture sometimes works http://kurtandersen.com/blogwp/2007/04/28/alas-torture-sometimes-works/ Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 26 May 2008 00:46:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Gaius http://kurtandersen.com/blogwp/2007/04/28/alas-torture-sometimes-works/comment-page-1/#comment-184 Gaius Mon, 21 May 2007 23:41:39 +0000 http://kurtandersen.com/blogwp/?p=18#comment-184 The really sad thing about torture is that is does work most of the time. I would agree that extremely rough and barbarous methods, such as the rack, obliges one to talk or suffer. So you run a high risk of getting gibberish. But the methods we (the US) use are best described as "torture lite." These are forceful methods of coercion such as water-boarding and sensory deprivation. There are some, such as Senator McCain, who say water-boarding and sensory deprivation are methods of torture and so should be banned. This is foolish nonsense! Remember, according to the press, the captured al Qaeda lieutenant, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of the World Trade Center attacks, was subjected to the tactic of "waterboarding" during his interrogation. No physical harm is actually done to the prisoner during waterboarding. The tactic makes the prisoner believe he is drowning, though he actually is not. Sheik Mohammed, reportedly, broke and provided good information to interrogators after two and a half minutes of waterboarding. Most people, according to experts, break and talk within 30 seconds after waterboarding begins. So Sheik Mohammed was not easy to crack. But he did crack and we did make some very good arrests and interventions from the information he provided. Translation: we saved lives. I wonder what the anti-coercion, anti-torture, anti-anything-that-save-lives-if-you-have-to-dirty-your-hands group would do with a hardened terrorist like Sheik Mohammed? They would just wait and wait and hope being nice to them would eventually get them to talk. Maybe that would work with the average terrorist after, say, a couple of years; but never with the hardened terrorist. But this you can be sure of: we pay for their silence in blood. The really sad thing about torture is that is does work most of the time. I would agree that extremely rough and barbarous methods, such as the rack, obliges one to talk or suffer. So you run a high risk of getting gibberish. But the methods we (the US) use are best described as “torture lite.” These are forceful methods of coercion such as water-boarding and sensory deprivation. There are some, such as Senator McCain, who say water-boarding and sensory deprivation are methods of torture and so should be banned. This is foolish nonsense!

Remember, according to the press, the captured al Qaeda lieutenant, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of the World Trade Center attacks, was subjected to the tactic of “waterboarding” during his interrogation. No physical harm is actually done to the prisoner during waterboarding. The tactic makes the prisoner believe he is drowning, though he actually is not. Sheik Mohammed, reportedly, broke and provided good information to interrogators after two and a half minutes of waterboarding. Most people, according to experts, break and talk within 30 seconds after waterboarding begins. So Sheik Mohammed was not easy to crack. But he did crack and we did make some very good arrests and interventions from the information he provided. Translation: we saved lives.

I wonder what the anti-coercion, anti-torture, anti-anything-that-save-lives-if-you-have-to-dirty-your-hands group would do with a hardened terrorist like Sheik Mohammed? They would just wait and wait and hope being nice to them would eventually get them to talk. Maybe that would work with the average terrorist after, say, a couple of years; but never with the hardened terrorist.

But this you can be sure of: we pay for their silence in blood.

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