I can be both pro harsh interrogation and against some legal basis laid out in a memo. Which points are you exactly referring to?

I can also be pro harsh interrogation and anti torture fwiw

Torture should only be allowed for a few specific "you can't handle the truth" type guys in the CIA. I don't see how it could not be an effective intelligence gathering tool.

From "logical" or "moral" standpoint (whatever those are), I think it is hypocritical to think war is OK in certain cases but torture is never OK under any circumstance.

That's not an entirely different issue. You shouldn't go into an interrogation, all else equal, assuming the person knows the answers to what you're asking.

exactly, torture obviously doesn't work some >x% of the time if there is x% chance that the guy doesn't know anything

I assume you aren't implying this, but to be sure - you don't think that torture has a 100% or near 100% success rate when the person IS holding the information, do you?

OP, cos the majority of people are raised as brainwashed ******s only capable of repeating popular ideas?

If you take any of those "opponents" and put them in a room with a man who has just kidnapped, raped and planted a timer bomb on their children. And he knows the place and code. And you give those "opponents" a torch and a hammer, don't need to be a genius to figure out what happens next.

Yes, we are the ones only capable of repeating popular ideas, like rejected Rambo script rewrites.

You lost me.

eliminated unnecessary words

Its called an illustration.

Have you read the thread?

No, I read the OP and replied to the OP.

Thats cool I do that too.

I'm curious: can you give an example of where torture ever produced a reliable piece of intelligence? I'd be very interested in this.

All torture tends to do is make the detained individual say what the torturers want them to.

Did not you watch Inglorious Basterds?

Yes, yes I did.

And torture was used for the purpose of intimidation there, too.

And actually, that movie provides another great example: Colonel Landa doesn't need to torture the dairy farmer at the beginning to get what he was after.

nothing is 100% and certainly not this. there is a lot of discussion about whether its somewhere close to 0% effective or somewhere south of 100%. But i think a lot of failure rate has to do with the guy just not knowing anything substantive. i doubt we can ever really know since I am guessing the study would be a bit controversial

You do realize that the very real threat of imminent death might have had something to do with this right?

Not exactly a widely available thing you know for obvious reasons. I don't believe water boarding is torture but here you go:

You must not have grown up with siblings. Torture can be effective.

Doesn't mean there aren't much more effective means that don't compromise one's principles, nor does it imply that often it produces rubbish (like any interrogation method), but implying that torture never produced a piece of useful information through history is silly. Go tickle your little brother until he gives in.

Not long after his capture and not long after his torture might be two very different times.

It's pretty widely documented that he was tight as drum until he was waterboarded at which point he blubbered like a baby and spewed for hours on end

Yeah and?

1) KSM freely admitted his role in 9/11 to al-Jazeera. No new info there.

2) There has yet to be any basis for the supposed "second wave of attacks" he was involved in.

3) KSM was very well documented as prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandizement even by the 9/11 Commission Report. There is question as to what extent any of his confessions can be trusted as he has even admitted to giving false information to stop the torture.

And yes, waterboarding is most certainly a form of torture.

Sure, I have siblings. And I already said torture is effective for the purpose of intimidation. This is far different than gathering reliable intelligence. With torture, you can pretty much get a person to admit anything

It makes little sense to use torture as a method of extracting reliable intelligence when there are far more effective ways to get reliable intelligence, unless of course you are using the torture as a form of intimidation for political purposes. In that respect it is effective.

Lol, no it isn't.

He talked about 9/11 openly with al-Jazeera in 2002 before he was ever captured.

So you can get them to admit anything, but only anything but the truth?