On torture: I Trust President Obama

[DeadLetterOffice]

70. Yes, Michigan, there HAVE been studies.

Google Scholar can be your friend if you're actually interested.

Meanwhile, some handy information from "Erroneous Assumptions: Popular Belief in the Effectiveness of Torture Interrogation," by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, in Peace & Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 13(4), November 2007, p 429–435.

...experienced military interrogators believe that torture and abuse should unquestionably be avoided. In the words of one senior Army interrogator, “Beyond the moral imperative, the competent interrogator avoids torture because it is counter-productive and unreliable …. In my two decades of experience as an interrogator, I know of no competent interrogator that would resort to torture. Not one” (Bennett, 2006). In their recent Statement on In terrogation Practices (Bauer, 2006), 20 Army interrogators and interrogation technicians, representing over 200 years of interrogation service and experience (from Vietnam to Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and Iraq), unequivocally contradicted the proposition that torture is necessary to win the “War on Terror.” Recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports make it clear that the FBI, too (in contrast to the Central Intelligence Agency), objected to the use of torture and regarded it as an unreliable and ineffective interrogation method (Dratel, 2006; also see Suskind, 2006).

The Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collection (Field Manual 2-22.3; 2006) provides a long list and discussion of approach techniques, all of which are based on the establishment of rapport between the interrogator and the source. These are powerful techniques, and social psychology attests to their success (see Cialdini, 2001; also see McCauley, this issue). Successful interrogation is based on understanding the motives, needs, and self-perceptions of the other in the service of developing an effective strategy for eliciting intelligence information. Effective interrogation relies on persuasion strategies used in everyday life, but produced with greater forethought, applied with greater deliberation, and maintained in the context of objectivity and social control. (For recent accounts of successful interrogations in the “War on Terror” using these social influence techniques, see Bowden, 2007 and Suskind, 2006.)