Torture memos

[DanaC]

Torture was very effective at rooting out witches in the salem witch trials. People confessed to being witches and told their interrogators who else was a witch in response to torture. Those they'd accused of being witches were then also tortured and they also confessed and gave information about other witches.


Torture makes people say anything to stop the pain and distress. Sometimes what they say is true; if for example they really do know something, they may well give that information. But unless you can say with 100% certainty that the people who are being tortured, know useful information, then you cannot trust that the information they inevitably give will be useful. Consequently alll information becomes suspect. Unless of course you are using their information to confirm what you already know...in which case why is there a need to drag it out of them with torture?

I can assure you, that if I were to find myself dragged into some situation through being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and accused of being part of some underground organisation; torture would have me naming names and detailing plans, regardless of whether any of that was valid.

Even if you do know for sure that someone is 'guilty' or involved in plots; you may get answers to your questions, but you may not get everything they could tell you. Psychological techniques to bring them to you, rather than traumatise them may well gain you more information, whilst also opening up new questions to ask as you dig deeper.

That and....it's fucking wrong. Just wrong. There is such a thing as 'right and wrong' and this is wrong. Totally, completely, morally wrong. It's also dangerous. If a government is prepared to sanction torture to protect its people from external threats; then it is not such a giant step for them to use it to protect from internal threats: for the police force to deem it acceptable to use toture to protect the 'law abiding' from the law breaker; or for an administration to use it to protect itself from 'dissent'. There is no sliding scale. It is either an acceptable tool or it is an unacceptable tool.