Interrogators Say Abuse Doesn't Yield Info

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040...

SAN FRANCISCO - Some military interrogators say they never used, or even witnessed, the type of violence and sexual humiliation captured in photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Such tactics aren't necessary or even effective, they say.

Sgt. Ken Weichert interrogated hundreds of Iraqis to gather wartime intelligence, but says only once did he raise his voice to extract information. snip

Military interrogators say torture and other physical abuse are not only inhumane, they produce unreliable results. Prisoners may tell interrogators what they want to hear, rather than the truth, just to stop the abuse.


Military intelligence officers receive extensive training in proper interrogation methods, soldiers say, including an emphasis on the humane treatment of prisoners and prohibitions against torture.

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[phaseolus]

1. This is good. This is really good....

With this info shedding light on the prison scandals, there are exactly two possible ways to spin the story:

1.) the Iraq prison torture/humiliation really was the work of a few bad apples who didn't know what the hell they were doing, or

2.) the people setting the policies on how to run the Iraq war are a bunch of incompetent fucks.

A document connecting Rumsfeld's office to the policy will eliminate possibility #1. It will support the likelihood of possibility #2.... which, as I read the story, is exactly what certain segments of the military community are saying between the lines.

[struggle4progress]

3. Option 2! Option 2! eom

[Don_G]

2. Torture Confirms "Your" Opinion

If one is opinionated enough to "beat" the information out of a prisoner, where does it stop when you don't want to hear of non-reliable information?

Your CO trying to make him/her self look good in the Dimbo Theatre of War?

[Devils Advocate NZ]

4. Rubbish...

This is the same old cover-up lie the US has been telling for years.

If torture didn't work, why did they set up a school to teach their puppets in South America how to torture people? Why are they STILL teaching their puppets how to torture people?

Of course torture works!

Here is their public version of how torture works (or doesn't):

The interrogator beats the prisoner and asks him to tell him where the enemy base is (for example). The prisoner refuses. The beating gets worse. The prisoner finally succumbs, but in reality he tells a lie about where the base is, and the interrogator is foiled!

End of story.

Here is the REALITY (as taught to soldiers who may face torture):

The interrogator tortures one prisoner and asks him where the base is. At the same time ANOTHER interrogator is torturing ANOTHER prisoner and asking him where the base is. The two prisoners tell a lie.

Now because they are making it up as they go along, these two lies are probably different. The interrogators leave the prisoners, and confer. Bingo, different stories, must be a lie.

Torture starts again, only worse. Once again they tell a lie, and once again they are caught in it. The torture gets even worse.

Finally they both tell the same story. Now there is reason to suspect this story is the truth, but it's not over yet! Now they send out troops to look where they are told. If there is no base, the torture starts all over again.

Sooner or later, BOTH of them will break and tell the truth.

THAT is how torture works, so don't believe a WORD of that bullshit from the military.

[teryang]

5. Info usually comes from parole

...and willing prisoners not resisters.

The obsession with torture as an effective policy has more to do with political oppression than effective tactical information. It works on tactical situations only rarely for two reasons, the first is that multiplicity of prisoners with shared need to know tactical information is not very common. Secondly, it has a perishable time value which varies inversely with the passing of time.

However, if you are in an occupation situation seeking to politically dominate an area, torture (like terror) can be effective. The loved ones of the detainee/victim are available and therefore the prisoner is vulnerable to extortion and forms of psychological stress not available in the typical tactical situation. Second, the detainees are usually soft targets with no training in psychological resistance techniques. Typical examples would be school teachers, union organizers and religious leaders and their illiterate followers. Third, the tactical situation isn't as fluid with families of the indigenous population needing shelter and traditional forms of community support, they have no where to run. Against organized and trained terrorists operating out of area with mobility, torture is generally ineffective.

Our administration's obsession with legitmizing torture has to do with imposing political dominance against competing sources of political authority, not with effecting tactical military successes.
The marginal effectiveness of torture in this effort against an armed mobile opponent compares unfavorably with a campaign of terror, which has political compliance as its goal not tactical information.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

7. Tactical intelligence may be unlikely...

but the GOOD stuff is the STRATEGIC intelligence, such as leaders names, PAST activites (building a picture of what the enemy has done, can lead to insights on what he is likely to do), and TOE.

In fact, there is no such thing as uninteresting information. As long as it is true, then it can help to build a picture of the target. Like for instance, finding out that a certain leader is having a dalliance with a certain woman, can open that leader up to capture if he should happen to visit her, or vice versa.

It all helps.

[teryang]

8. You need to torture people to find dalliances?

You're making my point for me.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

9. No, you never NEED to torture people...

But if you want to FORCE someone to tell you something, even the truth, then torture works.

That was only an EXAMPLE of the kinds of info torture might gain. I assume you are smart enough to figure out what else is possible.

[indepat]

6. If such treatment produces unreliable results, could one reasonably

conclude that some at the top are having it done because they like it?