Jay,

Studies have apparently shown that torture is not effective in obtaining useful information.

We have examples of Canadian citizens who were tortured and under such duress signed "confessions". Just to stop the pain. THEY WERE BOGUS CONFESSIONS as the people had played no part in whatever it was they confessed to.

Now imagine if you're just looking for "information". Almost anything can be offered up to stop the pain. I suspect it's not too hard for the tortured person to figure out what it is that the torturers want to hear and feed them some bull.

But, most importantly, I would hope that torture would be beneath first-world countries especially, simply based in principles! Torture is fine in the movies, but no where else.

Syria is a major outsource of torture for the U.S. I can imagine that fact influences tangible reactions by the U.S. to Syria. It better! Since the world knows that Syria "renditions" for the U.S. it would quickly become obvious to everyone that the U.S. cannot be trusted AT ALL if it should choose to 'address' the Syria issue as it did the Iraq issue.

By the way, it is WRONG that the U.S. sends anyone anywhere to be tortured. It's no different than doing the torture yourselves. Just like the guy who commissions a "hit" is as guilty as the hitman himself.




>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html
>
>I think the gist of that article is this exerpt:
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>"An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture."
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>It never actually talks about the effectiveness or timliness of getting information from the suspect. I would like to know if after the military stepped in, whether or not they were successful.