Of course no resources were wasted pursuing information that someone just made up to get the torture to stop. And no innocents were ever blown to bits because one of the tortured just pointed to a random spot on the map to get some respite. This isn't about obtaining information it's about revenge.

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents.

Funny how there are no accusations that we used the "rough stuff" on Iraqi scientists or high level Ba'athist gov't officials. It's almost as though we assumed the WMD and Al Qaeda connections were just invented rationale for the war.

"TORTURE DOESN'T WORK ..."

Wrong. Torture is the best way to get people to say things that aren't true.

Results are for pansies. Being tough and mean is what it is all about.

Works every thime for me ...whats the problem???

G/F'16 has it. An ethos has developed that real men torture; only pansies are against it. That's the real reason why too many people still defend torture.

everything Bush touches turns to shit. He's messed up the whole War of Terror. He's radicalized a whole generation of terrorists. And along the way he's trashed the Constitution, violated treaty obligations, and turned upside down the moral standing that was ours from the time of the Second World War (in particular, the Nuremberg Trials). It's amazing how one person can so fuck up history.

"I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

Oooops.

Torture works very well to induce confessions.

Torture is wrong, but it works. I know. I've had dentists who were unable to deaden tooth nerves. Naturally there are cases in which information given is not verifiable, in which case lies may be obtained, or cases in which the torturer is after a false confession or merely intends to inflict pain.

We convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader's location.

This doesn't seem very credible. If the snitch was a prisoner, how would he know where Zarqawi was? What's going on here? Not enough information.

Naturally a goodly percentage of humans will curry favor in captivity by betraying associates, or be bribable, such as the Awakened Sunnis who are given $300/mo., but by and large these humane methods are not as certain as torture.

It is acceptable to be against something while knowing it works. Making an argument that a method doesn't work because you're opposed to the method doesn't make for a convincing argument. Best to stick to the morality issue than making arguments that are not credible I think.

Perhaps this is the first glimmer of Bush's true legacy and history will revile him as the unimaginative coward that he is. For over 200 years the United States of America stood on principles and held beliefs. One terror attack and the 43rd president tossed all that out the window because deep down he did not believe in American ideals or defending them, he took the low road of vengeance and wars of convenience. Neither rule of law nor common sense could stand in the way of Bush's self serving tyranny.

As indications surface that those who facilitated and authorized violating the Geneva Conventions and going ahead, apparently full steam, with torture -- torture! -- as an American activity, I have wondered: how can such people be held to account? How can we reclaim honor and self respect? I'm just a person, not a policy maker. But: I can make my thoughts known, that those who aided and abetted torturing people are horribly wrong, and that the wrong they do and did is shared by those who knowingly support them in real, monetary, and professional ways.

For example, John Yoo, the contriver of legal "loopholes" that provided the alleged cover to this criminal behavior to Bush & Co, is a tenured law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where he continues to teach Constitutional Law. His dean refuses to address the issue, bowing before the apparently inviolable protection of tenure. (Protect tenure? Absolutely. Protect soldiers, honor, national character and the Geneva Conventions? Not so much.)

If you are a Berkeley alum, and there are a lot of us, you can write the Law School Dean and the Chancellor and tell him a) how appalled you are that Yoo's name is associated with this faculty bring with it shame and horror; and b) you promise to give not a dime, nothing, ever, to Berkeley or any UC campus Yoo goes. You can, since this is a state school, write if you are a CA taxpayer.

And meanwhile, in my humble opinion, a policy of shunning sounds about right. See John Yoo on the street? Cross to the other side. See him in line at the grocery store? Ditto. His dean, without stripping him of tenure (if that is, like water boarding, simply unthinkable to some people), can take away his classes, his committees, his graduate assistants, his key to the men's room if there is one, his parking space. Let him know just how welcome among decent men and women his theories that have enabled murder, crippling abuse, and caused some people to go stark raving mad are.

The liberal, forgiving soul that lives within me hates this: shunning under almost any circumstance seems a terrible idea. But John Yoo's legal contrivances have led to grievous harm, death, murder. People have been denied rights, abducted, horribly abused, driven insane. He meanwhile collects a salary at a taxpayer supported institution, has a big title, and continues apparently unscathed. Since we are unlikely to put him where he belongs -- in jail, which is where people who cause great harm and are deemed unfit around regular law respecting folk often end up -- we can stop letting him enjoy the public courtesy and respect that he has so nimbly help strip from our nation as a whole.

Why does Alexander hate America?

Above, Luther said "It is acceptable to be against something while knowing it works. Making an argument that a method doesn't work because you're opposed to the method doesn't make for a convincing argument. Best to stick to the morality issue than making arguments that are not credible I think.

This pithy, well articulated statement sums this issue up quite nicely. I am completely opposed to torture on moral grounds...torture is an odious, loathsome, morally bankrupt action. The fact that it sometimes does produce real information (not always, but sometimes) does nothing to change its value, which is less than zero for any free-thinking, freedom-loving society.

Peace.

The last line of this post is one of the things that has bothered me tremendously over the years:

"How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."

It reminds me of the "we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" line. So it's ok to sacrifice American lives so long as it is overseas and away from the cameras? So they volunteered. They volunteered to protect the constitution, not be offered up as ritual sacrifice.

The fact that it sometimes does produce real information (not always, but sometimes) does nothing to change its value, which is less than zero for any free-thinking, freedom-loving society.

Ah ... the gist of the post is that torture does NOT produce real information in any significant percentage of the cases and that MORE useful information is produced by not torturing.

Aside from that guy on 24, who has actually put forward any information that torture is effective?

In its definitive report, "Educing Information: Science and Art", published in December 2006 and found here - http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf - the United States National Defence Intelligence College is unambivalent in its contention that torture does not work. That's not to say it never elicits true information, because in isolated circumstances in which you are sure you have the guilty party and are also sure of what he or she knows, it might. However, if you know that much, you probably don't need to use torture. If you do, you've just handed your enemy a license to do the same to any and all of your countrymen held as prisoners, along with the moral high ground. This is worth more than it might appear at first blush, as the United States is learning to its everlasting regret.

The reference document reminds the reader of confessions elicited from captured American pilots in the Korean War, in which torture by the Chinese saw them admit to deliberately bombing civilian population centres - something they had not done. A great deal of research is collected to support what most already know: a person being tortured and in severe distress will say whatever he or she needs to in order to make it stop.

So, quit with the "torture is abhorrent, but it does work" line of argument. It doesn't work, and can waste a great deal of resources chasing down false leads elicited from somebody who doesn't know anything, but just wanted you to stop hurting him. If you have to exchange your international reputation for decency for that one-in-ten-million occasion where you got lucky and tortured the right person, it isn't worth it. Anyone captured by the other side will be brutally tortured in reprisal, whether they know anything or not. Despotic powers all over the globe are already rolling back human rights, justifying the action by pointing to the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Let's dispel this smug notion once and for all - torture does not produce results that justify its employment. The only people who still rely on it do so because they like it, not because it is effective.

Luther: "Torture is wrong, but it works. I know. I've had dentists who were unable to deaden tooth nerves. Naturally there are cases in which information given is not verifiable, in which case lies may be obtained, or cases in which the torturer is after a false confession or merely intends to inflict pain."

More Luther: "It is acceptable to be against something while knowing it works. Making an argument that a method doesn't work because you're opposed to the method doesn't make for a convincing argument. Best to stick to the morality issue than making arguments that are not credible I think."

So, Luther, based on experiences with a dentist, you've concluded that torture works. One wonders how. Did the dentist extract information from you that you were unwilling to give? Or were you just in pain?

More likely, Luther, it appears you may just be extrapolating from your unpleasant experiences with the dentist and making a global conclusion that torture works. Now, if this isn't the case, and you actually have some experience at either being tortured for information or having tortured others to obtain information, perhaps you'd like to share that.

As for me, I'm just an old retired military intelligence officer, who went through all of this in Vietnam and in later years. I've never tortured anyone, but I've conducted a lot of interrogations. My experiences and those of the entire U.S. intelligence community—repeat, the entire U.S. intelligence community—pretty much substantiate what this young interrogator told the WaPo. This is why it is base doctrine. And law. Not only is it immoral and illegal to torture, it's also stupid, because one can never trust information obtained under torture. And, given that effective members of the U.S. intelligence community are results and reality-driven and not ideological cowboys, there has really never been much controversy or disagreement surrounding the prohibitions. The fact that a criminal administration decided torture would be a dandy thing to do and that some members of the intelligence community went along does nothing to alter the fundamental truth: We don't do it, not necessarily because it's illegal or immoral, but because it doesn't work.

Over to you, Luther. Put up or shut up. Tell everyone about your experiences in this area or let them think you're just a guy who doesn't have a clue as to what he's talking about, but thinks it's ever so cool to impeach a guy who's actually out there doing things for his country. And doing them the right way.

I'd agree with the "torture doesn't work" philosophy when it comes to intelligence. But it does work well for propaganda. If you want to force an enemy soldier to make a false confession, torturing them will surely work. It worked on John McCain and many other US soldiers during the Vietnam War. Torture may not work for eliciting the truth, but it's great for eliciting falsehoods.

I'm pretty confident Luther was just being funny with the dental reference, and if he'd stopped there, it would have been. To suggest torture is an effective method of obtaining accurate information that Western powers forswear simply because of the bloody mechanics of it, however, is misinformed at best.

Professionals in the freewheeling, anything-goes world of intelligence gathering agree torture is an unreliable tool that tends to turn in the hand of the torturer and, if he has a conscience, mark him forever. If it was the Des Moines House-Painters Union that so opined, I might be a little skeptical. Since it is genuine intelligence professionals who have reason to know the method's flaws, as well as the fortitude to use it if it were truly effective, I'm a believer.

in a very odd sense, the majority of troops being paid by the usg in iraq are not legitimate agents of the armed forces of the united states.

they are mercenaries.

their economic mission is not to end the hostilities, but to prolong them.

as i have said many times, where do the mercs figure into the usg order of battle? who controls their activities?

you know of abu ghraib, bagram, etc. and some of the rendition sites.

do you know of the secret prisons operated by blackwater, dyncorp, etc?