Believe Me, It's Torture

1. Does Hitchens try to make us feel bad for him because of his age and past?

2. Does torture really work?

3. How is waterboarding all that different than other types of torture.

I will be answering question 2.


To honestly tell you the truth, I don't think that torture even works all that well. Hitchen's article says that we have training procedures of torture for our military that if they get captured and tortured, they would be able to withstand it. Who says that the opposing side isn't doing the same. In the past the United States has militarily trained different countries and group that are now our enemies. One example is Al' Qaeda. In 1970, the US trained forces in Afghanistan to help them fight the Russian threat in that area. And as sure I am that the sky is blue, I'm sure that they also trained them to withstand torture. But even if you did have someone they believe was higher up, they wouldn't spill out any information anyway. They have higher stakes in the cause and obviously have devoted beliefs to get them at high up. They would rather die than have anything to do with halting their cause.

A second problem that does arise is the idea that the information you get out of someone is actually factual. It's been said that everyone has a breaking point. But who's to say that the breaking point is just to stop feeling the pain. They would say anything to get them out of that situation. I know I would. If I believed in the cause as much as I think Al' Qaeda believes in it, I would give as much corrupted information to them to completely throw them off the trail. What is actually stopping any hostage from giving that information. That information not only throws the integrator off, but also stops his torture in the meantime. It's a win win for the hostage. Eventually the more false information he gives, the less of a reliable source he becomes and eventually becomes useless.

But with all that being said, I don't actually know what goes on in an interrogation room so things might actually work out differently.