The Intelligence Science Board are entrusted with the task of providing scientific advice to the United States intelligence community. In 2006 they produced their study on 'Educing Information', a collection of 11 papers studying various aspects of the science and art of interrogation. The authors of this document make the same point that I opened this article with:
Listening to the post-9/11 debate over guidelines for the interrogation of terrorist suspects, one could easily conclude that coercive methods are not only effective, but also substantially more effective than non-coercive methods in obtaining actionable intelligence from resistant sources. Even those opposed to the use of coercive methods fail to challenge this premise, exclusively focusing their arguments instead on the legal and moral issues at stake. (p130)
And this is surprising, because it's such a weak premise. For the sake of completeness and balance it would be nice at this point to be able to show and discuss some evidence that favours the use of torture. I can't, because in reality, as the report notes, and as I found myself as I trawled the archives searching for material for this piece:
The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information.(p130)
In spite of decades of use, and ample opportunity to gather statistics, there just isn't any scientific evidence beyond a few dubious anecdotes to show that torture works. Torture is an extreme method, and before we even reach the ethical and moral debate over its use, the effectiveness of it must be demonstrated to some reasonable degree. The burden of proof lies with the people who seek to torture. Any trials would of course be deeply unethical, but it's not like they don't have plenty of past experience to draw data from.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/.../2010/nov/04/2
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