Tag: torture effectiveness

Dick and Liz Cheney tell us that enhanced interrogation is not torture and that it made the US safer by providing actionable intelligence. They say it was unwise to make the US techniques public, because the terrorists can now train to them. Both of these claims are hogwash. More importantly, though, they expose a flaw in the Cheney mindset. The Cheneys adhere to The Rambo Myth: Subjects of torture will grant a true confession in order to avoid the pain of more torture. If we are just sadistic enough, we will get the truth out of those bastards.

Cheney et al. provided pressure to waterboard several high value prisoners to obtain information in short order. While there is some disagreement about whether or not waterboarding was used to forge a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, it is clear that we waterboarded one prisoner 83 times and another 183 times in one month. What did this likely accomplish?

Let’s have a look at the ticking bomb.

Torture apologists are talking. They are telling us that enhanced interrogation made the US safer by providing actionable intelligence. They also say it was unwise to make the US techniques public, because the terrorists can now train to them. Both of these claims are hogwash.

Anti-torture advocates counter that a prisoner pushed to the brink will confess to get the torture to stop, and that makes any information extracted under torture dubious. That is certainly a part of the story, but it overlooks a host of other reasons why we cannot expect to gain good information through torture.

This is the first diary in a series on the subtle reasons why the US enhanced interrogation program is shortsighted and cannot produce reliable intelligence.