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The overwhelming evidence is that actually engaging with a subject gets better intel than trying to beat it out of them.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-better-way-get-information-torture-180953616/
Torture is never about getting intel.
Is about causing pain to someone they hate, and at most about getting a confession no matter if true or false.
But what’s the fun in that?
Usually, the phrase goes, “but where’s the fun in that?”. Just FYI, in case you care.
Yeah, but who is the fun in that?
Sure, but when is the fun in that?
But they never ask… how is the fun… :(
UwU, CIA-Daddy, do me harder!
Im uncomfortable.
Don’t make me call CIA-Daddy again!
< rant >
Since WWII, we’ve taken all our interrogation cues from this guy, who was so effective at getting information from POWs and enemy agents that his methods inform modern techniques in the industrial world.
We knew all this well before the whole Abu Ghraib controversy in 2003 and CIA’s Extrajudicial Detention and Enhanced Interrogation program, as did the very guys who developed the program.
So they not only committed crimes against humanity, but can’t even fall back on justifications of war. During the international war on terror, the US tortured POWs, civilians and even Americans because some rich people and officials wanted Arab Muslims to suffer for their own gratification, and no other reason.
It was the moment that I realized the US (my own country) are, in fact, the baddies.
Yes, CIA did engage in some irregular interrogation methods during the cold war, often in dealing with counter-espionage situations, but even then it wasn’t regarded as an acceptable torture method. KGB, similarly, at least once fed a caught mole feet first into a blast furnace while the rest of the staff watched. It sent a message but fucked morale for weeks.
Torturing others reminds us we human beings are still beasts who sometimes pretend to be civilized but still can’t help ourselves but go on our feelies, often showing the world just how sore a loser we can be. We have to try harder, maybe get clever, to do better.
< /rant >
I would quibble here and say that torture is actually an incredibly civilised act. I mean this not as an endorsement, but rather in the sense that only highly ‘civilised’ societies appear to have every carried out systematic torture. It seems to require a great deal of centralised, bureaucratic control in order to prevent instincts like empathy from preventing it.
It’s also worth pointing out that torture, as defined in a UN convention that is pretty broadly ratified is much broader than we normally think of it. It is defined as follows:
For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Which I think is food for thought. Portrail of torture is incredibly systemic in media, and I think we are numbed to it a great deal although I don’t know which way causality goes there. How many of you have seen cops handling someone roughly with the intent to hurt them or intimidating someone to make them pliable as routine ‘justice’? That is literally torture by a convention that it is highly likely the country they work for has ratified.
After watching this video I can’t stop pointing up every time there is a normalized torture scene on some series of movie im watching.
Great watch, thanks for the recommendation.
What an interesting read, thank you for the link!
I’d encourage everyone to read more about his life before and after becoming an interrogator, but I found a tl:dr of his methods
The Scharff Technique was defined by four key components: 1) a friendly approach, 2) not pressing for information, 3) the illusion of knowing it all, and 4) the confirmation/disconfirmation tactic. (The latter strategy is when an interrogator presents a claim in the hope that the prisoner will confirm or disconfirm it—it’s what Scharff used to learn about the tracer bullets.)
Everyone’s a badass until the Cenobites show up.
Pinhead: “We have such sights to show you…”
CIA: “Aw man, I was really looking forward to torturing it out of you. You’re just gonna spill the beans before the fun?”
Bratty masochist subs should compose the entirety of intelligence operations when the revolution comes
What ever happened to him?
Well, he pulled it on Rorschach, and Rorschach dropped him down an elevator shaft.
Flashlight or Fleshlight … I don’t care
dom/sub stands for Dominant World Power / Interrogation Subject
This is my tactic if they ever get me
Humans are space orcs.
