Yes and I believe that it has been proven to be so. I think the fear of torture is probably more effective than actual torture. Fear is a powerful weapon.

I have never been tortured but I probably will be in the future. It would be easy to torture me.. just take away my two prescription medications and watch me go nuts. While being tortured, I would not be very productive.

Yes, especially if the person you're torturing is into BDSM.

No...otherwise it would not have been used throughout history. The most productive part of torture is the mental side. Fear, agrivation, unknown, etc. The physical side is only an aide to the mental side in breaking a person down.

NEVER EVER

No. It may be counter-productive to the person being tortured, but everyone around them will start singing like canaries. At least that is what we have found in Iraq.

I believe it is ultimately counter productive. When one is tortured they will say anything to stop the process.It is unlikely that a lot of true and relevant information can be gotten from torture.They will say whatever the guards want to hear.When one is under extreme stress,their thinking is impaired and therefore not reliable.

No not at all if the Us and British use it. They should use torture much more and more often. Torture of prisoners should get the basic standard of the British and US forces. This way every enemy would know what will happen to him.

I for one think the use of torture can be productive. In fact, I think the waterboarding that has been done has yielded tangible results. . Obama chose to leave this out when he talked about how Evil Bush and Cheney were for allowing it's use. But, it worked. . I also don't understand how people can root for torture in movies and then bash the hell out of someone like Bush who was willing to get the info we needed. . A good example was a coworker of mine who watched the movie "taken". When I asked her how she felt about his torturing to get where his daughter was she replied "I am ok with that because he knew they knew where his daughter was" So I asked whether she was OK with torturing terrorists like after 9/11. She said "NO". . Isn't that a double standard? . I think so. . Good question Max +s

Depends upon what your desired outcome is: Information? Yes. To get to torture folks? No.

Torture is wrong but unfortunately sometimes may be necessary in an extreme scenario.I am not an advocate of torture but if someone knew the location of a bomb or hostages and there was a time limit for the bomb to go off or the hostages to be killed and there is a chance to extract the location through torture to save many lives I believe it would be a necessary evil. I would not be proud of the fact that I had to resort to it but I would be glad that lives were saved. Torture without a purpose like what the Nazis or the Viet Cong did to make people sign the papers or denounce their government is nothing but pure evil in my opinion.

From what I understand - yes it is.

This is so F***ing simple, I don't understand why people don't get it. WE are the Good Guys (or hope to be). As the Good Guys, we DO NOT TORTURE. Furthermore, we are signatories to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment To quote the relevant section (Article 2, Section 2) "NO EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." What part of NO EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER is so difficult for people to understand? . . .

Yep. The experts tell us that. Those who don't like that answer though would have you believe otherwise.....and so it goes. The experts are ignored and the loud/noisy dissenters (who unfortutely were "in charge" for awhile) are entirely ignorant of what is true and what are lies :( The neocon warmongers love torture...as long as it is applied as they deem "fit", which of course is always the way these things work! :(

It seems to get the job done..

While I'm not saying torture can NEVER produce results, GENERALLY, it is counter-productive.

Torture is definitely counter productive as its barbaric and seldom gets reliable information. The Americans used torture at Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the British Intelligence service supplied them with questions to ask the victim undergoing torture. The use of torture is against the Geneva Convention and thats why countries who have signed it torture people in countries thave have not. Countries that torture prisoners should never complain when their servicemen and women are captured and tortured by their enemies.

it depends upon your goal. if the goal is to obtain valid intelligence, then, usually it is less effective than befriending the person and obtaining information through + reinforcement. too many inaccuracies are spoken with potentially useful information that we don't know how to separate out the two. i am amazed at the science of neuroimaging and the contributions that it may well provide for interrogations of prisoners or perhaps even criminal cases and some civil cases. i look for these advances to come to the public domain in the next ten years. . now, the goal of the u.s. enhanced interrogation program has not been to obtain intelligence. what is the worst thing that you can do to somebody who is willing to die for his god? you kill him, you turn him into a martyr. it's far "better" to torture these folks. that is a far worse punishment than death or prison and it gets the rest of the terrorists who know (because the white house leaked that it tortures in 2003) that they'll be tortured to think a second and third time about terrorizing americans. . i'm glad that i'm a bumpkin from the sticks who doesn't have to determine what's ethical, moral, pragmatic, utilitarian ...