Torture Bad

There's been a lot of discussion about torture recently - is it OK to use it, and is waterboarding torture? I probably have nothing to say that you can't find elsewhere, but I feel it needs to be said. And this, after all, the Web.

Firstly, yes - waterboarding is torture. Its effect is derived from the fact that it is extremely unpleasant, and at a very low level in the brain. It's nothing to do with convincing someone by reason or explaining how their behavior is wrong; it's just the infliction of pain.
One person was moved by the controversy to try it on himself - a noble deed, and one that I would be curious about trying, but only under expert supervision. Whether I really want to be waterboarded by an expert is a question for another time.

Secondly, it's not a reliable way to gather evidence. In the hands of an experienced practitioner, the person being tortured will admit to anything that will make it stop - and that's whatever the interrogator thinks they did. This is clear from the witchcraft trials of centuries past, and from many other things besides. So all you can get from it is what you can confirm independently - and so why not do that first, and save it for the trial?

It is at this point that someone will usually start talking about the terrorist with a nuclear weapon timed to go off within 24 hours, or some such thing. Fine, but how often does this actually happen? The terrorist in any case will know that they have only to hold out for a short time, and they can send the investigators off to bogus locations periodically to stop the torture (or else, they will know that even the correct info will not stop it). Also, whatever allowed you to catch someone who knows the location, will presumably help you look for it. Do that!

So there's little upside in it; what about the downside?

We are the good guys, we tell ourselves; and to win the present "war" on terrorism requires that we convince the rest of the world of the same thing. There is no military victory to be found; we cannot kill or subjugate all of the world's potential terrorists and we would ruin the world and ourselves if we tried. "Do unto others" applies to nations as well as people, and if you need convincing ask yourself what you think about other countries that practice torture. Do you trust them? Would you help or hinder their enemies?

For every piece of information we obtain through torture, for every suspect we catch, we create many more sympathizers to our attackers. And not just people who are prepared to kill, but people who will believe propaganda about us, and will believe that our enemies are not so bad - after all, aren't we the ones who torture prisoners?

Torture does us far more harm than good, and the sooner we publically condemn it the better.