Another important point to be made about the use of torture is that torturers tend to frame any discussions of their actions or motivations in "false" or simplistic ways. For example, as I've discussed previously, many people have discussed the supposed need for the use of torture in terms of various sets of "exigent" circumstances, and, in these types of "false" contexts, the people present torture as being one of a small number of "less-than-ideal" but necessary, possible courses of action, in response to the exigency of the circumstances. Supposedly, as these people have said many times in tv interviews, if a group of terrorists are planning an attack, people in the government may need to torture someone, in order to obtain information and thereby prevent the attack. Of course, the scenario is extremely improbable, given that people in the government are very inept and are unlikely to be sufficiently "on top of things," so as to either have access to the individual(s) that have the information or to know enough to ask the right questions or to even suspect that an attack is imminent.
However, supposing that people in the government could, at some point, know enough to suspect an imminent attack and know that someone in their custody might be able to provide information that could be used to prevent the attack, why couldn't the people in the government have devised some other set of methods that might have allowed them to not have to rely on medievalistic violence to obtain the desired information. Put another way, the people in the government would be very unlikely to be so skilled as to be able to unravel the machinations of would-be terrorists and then have to fall apart, at the last second, and flail around like idiots, torturing someone like a bunch of goddamn animals. To know that a given individual might have specific knowledge of a specific attack would, seemingly, require one to have been speaking with the individual for a long time or to have obtained intimate knowledge of the person's day-to-day activities. Chances are, the people in the government would already have very detailed knowledge about the types of information that the person had previously been privy to and that the person would be likely to possess at any given time, and the access of government workers to this detailed knowledge of the person's cognitive and social characteristics would probably mean that the government workers would not have to torture the person to know the extent of the person's knowledge about any would-be event or attack or whatever. To know that person A, known to be a member of a terrorist organization, would have knowledge, at a particular time (the time at which the person is in custody and is about to be tortured, for example) of a set of plans that other members of his or her organization had made, one would need, presumably, to know or to have reason to suspect that the person had been either present at the "planning meeting(s)" or had been informed of the plans at some other time and location. For a government worker to know that the person had been present at the planning or had been informed of the plans, the government worker would presumably need to have a significant amount of knowledge about (1) the places that person A had been (or the people that person A had been in contact with, at specific times) or (2) the time(s) or locations at which the plans for the suspected attack might be known to have occurred or (3) the time(s) at which various members of the organization had convened, along with the presence of some sort of information that would strongly imply that person A might have the desired knowledge. That's not a precise statement, but my point is that one would have to have a lot of very specific knowledge of both the person and the organization, and one would also have to have some sort of sophisticated, information-gathering framework already in place. The information that one would need to have would already be so specific as to make the notion of a need for an "information fishing exercise" an absurdity, in my opinion. Thus, the scenario that people typically present, in the popular press, is highly, highly improbable and is presented as a false choice between the use of torture, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the potentially-disastrous consequences that could stem from an unwillingness to use torture.
Almost by definition, an organization that uses torture to obtain information is one in which people are not making much use of their minds to solve problems, and the acceptance of the supposed need to use torture requires one to accept an absurd contrast between the use of sophisticated, professional approaches, most of the time, and medievalistic violence on some "special occasions." Supposedly, as people who go on television to defend the use of torture would have people believe, the situation is one in which government organizations primarily use highly-sophisticated intelligence-gathering techniques to gather information, through the use of wiretapping technologies or through other means of intercepting communications or whatever, but then have to suddenly have to go "medievalistic" and abandon all professionalism and drown or sexually assault people randomly, to obtain their final, brilliant, crowning achievement, in the form of a crucial piece of information. Even more surprisingly, the government workers usually only have to turn into street thugs when there is a need to obtain the most important bits of information. This is not believable and would be analogous to a situation in which the chief financial officer or chief executive officer of a corporation would, most of the time, rely on the use of banking and other complex transactions with shareholders or investors but then have to go on a mugging spree and rob a bunch of people on the streets, to guide the company through a crisis or to achieve the goal for the company's first-quarter earnings. "When my company hasn't met its projected earnings for the fiscal year, you're goddamn right I hit the streets and shake down some junkies for cash. Hell yes I do it, and I won't apologize for doing it. I know that most of my shareholders wouldn't object to that, if it'll prevent our company from going through bankruptcy." When one looks at this type of analogy to a commonly-cited justification for the use of torture, in the context of exigent circumstances, one can see the absurdity of the justification for the use of torture. If one were to suppose that a government worker knew that a given individual, in custody at a specific time, would be likely to have specific information about a specific event, the decision to use torture to obtain that information would, more precisely, be sort of analogous to the hiring, by one CEO of a corporation, of some street thugs to go and get "shareholder transaction" information from another high-ranking person, such as a CEO or CFO (presumably, only a high-ranking criminal in a terrorist organization would be likely to have information about some highly-planned terrorist attack). What information could you get from a CEO that you wouldn't already know? How could you be in such a pathetic position, as a sophisticated CEO, as to have to resort to violence to get the last bit of information from another CEO, when you'd have to already know enough, about both the other CEO and the specifics of his or her financial transactions, to obviate the need to hire the thugs to get the...last bit of information? What's the nature of the information? "We have detailed data on ten billion financial transactions, but I want you to go and shake down Bob [the other CEO] for that final, single piece of data on the last, additional transaction. Don't ask him or intercept communications, for Christ's sake--waterboard the motherfucker." Only a bunch of stupid, "almost-retarded" thugs would need to go around stringing people up on ropes or drowning them to solve their own failure to solve their problems by using their minds.
However, supposing that people in the government could, at some point, know enough to suspect an imminent attack and know that someone in their custody might be able to provide information that could be used to prevent the attack, why couldn't the people in the government have devised some other set of methods that might have allowed them to not have to rely on medievalistic violence to obtain the desired information. Put another way, the people in the government would be very unlikely to be so skilled as to be able to unravel the machinations of would-be terrorists and then have to fall apart, at the last second, and flail around like idiots, torturing someone like a bunch of goddamn animals. To know that a given individual might have specific knowledge of a specific attack would, seemingly, require one to have been speaking with the individual for a long time or to have obtained intimate knowledge of the person's day-to-day activities. Chances are, the people in the government would already have very detailed knowledge about the types of information that the person had previously been privy to and that the person would be likely to possess at any given time, and the access of government workers to this detailed knowledge of the person's cognitive and social characteristics would probably mean that the government workers would not have to torture the person to know the extent of the person's knowledge about any would-be event or attack or whatever. To know that person A, known to be a member of a terrorist organization, would have knowledge, at a particular time (the time at which the person is in custody and is about to be tortured, for example) of a set of plans that other members of his or her organization had made, one would need, presumably, to know or to have reason to suspect that the person had been either present at the "planning meeting(s)" or had been informed of the plans at some other time and location. For a government worker to know that the person had been present at the planning or had been informed of the plans, the government worker would presumably need to have a significant amount of knowledge about (1) the places that person A had been (or the people that person A had been in contact with, at specific times) or (2) the time(s) or locations at which the plans for the suspected attack might be known to have occurred or (3) the time(s) at which various members of the organization had convened, along with the presence of some sort of information that would strongly imply that person A might have the desired knowledge. That's not a precise statement, but my point is that one would have to have a lot of very specific knowledge of both the person and the organization, and one would also have to have some sort of sophisticated, information-gathering framework already in place. The information that one would need to have would already be so specific as to make the notion of a need for an "information fishing exercise" an absurdity, in my opinion. Thus, the scenario that people typically present, in the popular press, is highly, highly improbable and is presented as a false choice between the use of torture, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the potentially-disastrous consequences that could stem from an unwillingness to use torture.
Almost by definition, an organization that uses torture to obtain information is one in which people are not making much use of their minds to solve problems, and the acceptance of the supposed need to use torture requires one to accept an absurd contrast between the use of sophisticated, professional approaches, most of the time, and medievalistic violence on some "special occasions." Supposedly, as people who go on television to defend the use of torture would have people believe, the situation is one in which government organizations primarily use highly-sophisticated intelligence-gathering techniques to gather information, through the use of wiretapping technologies or through other means of intercepting communications or whatever, but then have to suddenly have to go "medievalistic" and abandon all professionalism and drown or sexually assault people randomly, to obtain their final, brilliant, crowning achievement, in the form of a crucial piece of information. Even more surprisingly, the government workers usually only have to turn into street thugs when there is a need to obtain the most important bits of information. This is not believable and would be analogous to a situation in which the chief financial officer or chief executive officer of a corporation would, most of the time, rely on the use of banking and other complex transactions with shareholders or investors but then have to go on a mugging spree and rob a bunch of people on the streets, to guide the company through a crisis or to achieve the goal for the company's first-quarter earnings. "When my company hasn't met its projected earnings for the fiscal year, you're goddamn right I hit the streets and shake down some junkies for cash. Hell yes I do it, and I won't apologize for doing it. I know that most of my shareholders wouldn't object to that, if it'll prevent our company from going through bankruptcy." When one looks at this type of analogy to a commonly-cited justification for the use of torture, in the context of exigent circumstances, one can see the absurdity of the justification for the use of torture. If one were to suppose that a government worker knew that a given individual, in custody at a specific time, would be likely to have specific information about a specific event, the decision to use torture to obtain that information would, more precisely, be sort of analogous to the hiring, by one CEO of a corporation, of some street thugs to go and get "shareholder transaction" information from another high-ranking person, such as a CEO or CFO (presumably, only a high-ranking criminal in a terrorist organization would be likely to have information about some highly-planned terrorist attack). What information could you get from a CEO that you wouldn't already know? How could you be in such a pathetic position, as a sophisticated CEO, as to have to resort to violence to get the last bit of information from another CEO, when you'd have to already know enough, about both the other CEO and the specifics of his or her financial transactions, to obviate the need to hire the thugs to get the...last bit of information? What's the nature of the information? "We have detailed data on ten billion financial transactions, but I want you to go and shake down Bob [the other CEO] for that final, single piece of data on the last, additional transaction. Don't ask him or intercept communications, for Christ's sake--waterboard the motherfucker." Only a bunch of stupid, "almost-retarded" thugs would need to go around stringing people up on ropes or drowning them to solve their own failure to solve their problems by using their minds.
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