Torture

Torture doesn't work. Everybody's pretty much known that since, oh say, 1066. It's worthless for eliciting information. Oh, you can elicit information through torture, all right, but it's unreliable. I mean, when someone's shoving bamboo shoots under your fingernails, you'll say anything.

But, Schlub, waaait a minute! Iron maiden, the rack, the Spanish Inquisition, those weren't exactly tickle fests. Right, Torquemada was in there torturing from dawn to dusk. But, he wasn't interested in information; he wanted a confession, whether true or not, immaterial. Politics, man. You need heretics to confess, rip a couple of fingers off and, presto! confession. You need someone to admit being Anne Boleyn's lover, couple of hours on the rack, there's your lover.

But if you need accurate information, like the location of enemy troops and when they plan to attack, then torture isn't a good choice. See, you just can't believe the information you get by ripping someone's nose off. They'll tell you anything, and that just might get your army massacred. What's better is persuading the enemy to give up his info voluntarily. Well, how do you do that? By proving them wrong.

In Vietnam, the guys used to take captured VC and put them in a room with a working television, get them some food, and leave. About three days later, they're spilling their guts. Why? Because, the TV showed them everything they believed was a lie. The West was prosperous and happy, not filled with anguished wage slaves, like it is now. I always thought the easiest way to win the Cold War was load up a squadron of B-52s with Levis and drop them on Moscow. Week later, no more Soviet Union.

BUT…

…there IS a situation requiring torture: when you already know some of the information, you have the person with the rest of the information in your custody, and you are running out of time. Say, your daughter has been kidnapped, she is strapped to a bomb that will go off in 30 minutes, and you've got the kidnapper in your hands. So, time to start peeling skin off faces, right? Wrong. You need to use something else, something that the craphead knows will not kill him or leave him marked, but will make him freakin' miserable and will not end until he provides the info you need.

Something like waterboarding.