Do you think torture should be used to make people talk?

Question

No more time wasting trying to find out what happened to someone.No more lies and time wasted.

Answer 1

No! My wife tortures me constantly with her talking. It's a real drag!

Answer 2

Oh, you'll definitely get people to "talk" if you torture them, but you'll never know whether what they tell you is the truth or just what the tortured person thinks you want to hear to get you to stop torturing him.  You've asked several questions here on this subject.  Are you just trying to play Devil's Advocate, or do you truly not understand the uselessness of torture in providing reliable information?

There are basically three reasons for torturing someone, none of which have anything to do with extracting reliable information.  One of the main reasons for torturing people is to extract "confessions" of supposed crimes committed, a fact which was documented in a US study of the treatment of American prisoners of war during the Korean War.  These "confessions" can then be disseminated, both to justify the torture, ex post facto, and to justify further crackdowns.  

Another reason to torture people is to terrorize, not just the person tortured, but also his friends and family, and anyone else he comes in contact with when he is released.  For this purpose, of course, it is important that the person not die during the torture process, else the effect of sending him back out into the population as an object lesson in the futility of resistance is lost.

The third reason for torture is simply as punishment.  This reason is a corollary to the second reason, but in this case death through torture is acceptable.  Word will still get out that, if one commits certain acts of resistance one may be tortured to death, rather than simply being quickly executed, which for most people is fearsome enough.

This is not simply my "opinion."  Anyone who knows anything about the history of torture will tell you that you simply do not get reliable information from torturing people, and that that is generally not the reason it is done anyway.  

But all this misses the larger point here:  one of the fundamental principles upon which the US is founded is the rule of law, and torture is a practice that takes place, not just outside the bounds of US law, but contrary to it.  This is true whether or not reliable information can be gained through torture.  Thanks to the Bush administration, the US will never again be able to say "We do not torture."  Once this sorry chapter in American history has passed into memory, the US will hopefully be able to say "We don't torture ANYMORE."  But that's really not quite the same thing, is it?