re: People who think torturing terrorists is wrong..

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A vast knowledge of psychology is required to get info from torture

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Meh. A working knowledge, sure. But interrogation is a skill, not an art, and most can learn enough to extract useful information in 90% of cases.

The key sticking point is time. Given enough time, every subject breaks. We just don't always have unlimited time. So, the enhanced techniques aren't necessarily shortcuts, but they are expressways. And true "torture" even when effective, briefly, has the drawback that Lakeboy mentioned - you have to do an awful lot of vetting of that intel.

But our guys are professional. And I don't think waterboarding is torture - but, say it is. We don't do all the interviewing under waterboarding - just until resistance is broken, and we're back to more traditional, less severe techniques. It is very much like dealing with a child.

What you see in "the wild" is that a lot of the terrorists, particularly leaders and hubs, have been hardened. They have multiple "break" points. They have packets of false intel to pollute the stream. Everything has to be crosschecked, anyway, so getting them talking is better than nothing. These are often tough enough that getting rough is the only way to get them talking. And that's the key in interrogation - keep them talking.

There is an axiom in HUMINT - "Everyone wants to tell everyone everything all the time." That's very true. All you have to do is facilitate that. On some days it is easy and on other days it is hard. (I know, phrasing.)

So you approve of war crimes.

Good thing America disagrees with you.

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I always gave a little knowing wave to the HVTs we put on the aircraft headed to Romania.

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Eastern bloc countries, Asian governments and Israel - now, much of what they do is distasteful, but you can't call it ineffective - if the average American know what went on in our Allies' and coalition partners' cells, they would collectively say, "So, what is the big fricking deal about waterboarding?"

Its a rough business. Google JTF 435 when you get some time.

not torturing terrorists is what separates us from terrorists. Once you start torturing a terrorist, you become a terrorist

Yeah, Parwan made Abu Ghraib look like Romper Room.

Say you get into a fight with someone. The rules are that they can have a knife and you can't. If you could change the rules so you could also have a knife, would you?

I'm not trying to be a nice guy if someone is killing me

I listened to a podcast that compared how our WWII POWs were treated and how we treated enemy POWs. Lots of hot head Americans, politicians included, at the time were against providing good food and medical care to enemy POWs and wanted us to treat them like shite. Cooler heads prevailed.

It made me proud to be an American that we were the civilized society and we prevailed.

Then they moved on to modern times. It's not as easy to claim the high road anymore.

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fr33manator

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tGOATst of the Ostfront !!! .....

Obviously not what I was getting at