Torture is torture

I'm not a big fan of torture. Okay I like 24 and watching Jack beat information out of informants is pretty fun, but in all my reading on torture it just isn't a reliable method of gathering information.

I hope the US government wakes up to this fact sometime soon. How can we hold the higher moral ground against our enemies if we torture suspects?

clipped from www.newscientist.com

Prisoners subjected only to psychological torture report as much mental anguish as those who are beaten, according to new research.

The study of nearly 300 survivors of torture from the former Yugoslavia found that those who experienced no physical torment later developed equally high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as those who did. The survivors also rated the distress caused at the time by the two types of torture equally highly. Researchers say the findings provide a strong argument against the use of psychological maltreatment of prisoners - referred to by some as "torture lite".

"Torture generates extremely bad intelligence data" and is "enormously counterproductive", according to bioethicist Steven Miles at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, US. He gives the example that some of the information linking Iraq to Al-Qaeda, which later proved wrong, came from a man named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi during CIA interrogations in Egypt that involved torture.