Once Again: Torture Does Not Yield Valuable Information

Ali Soufan, former FBI interrogator, once again shows how Khaled Sheik Mohammed, interrogated by Soufan until the new torture crew was brought in to torture KSM, did not give up important information that somehow justifies the use of torture. We've repeated this here ad nauseam. Torture, by its very essence, cannot uncover significant information without becoming a large-scale institution, which - assuming for argument's sake that efficiency of information-gathering is the goal - is vastly more inefficient than the tried and true non-torturous techniques used by Soufan and others. Once again, believing otherwise is a function of ignorance.

A lack of knowledge perhaps explains why so many false claims have been made about the [torture] program’s alleged successes. Many officials in Washington reading the reports didn’t know enough about Al Qaeda to know what information was already known and whether the detainees were telling all they knew. The inspector general’s report states that many operatives thought their superiors were inaccurately judging that detainees were withholding information. Such assessments, the operatives said, were “not always supported by an objective evaluation” but were “too heavily based, instead, on presumptions.” I can personally testify to this.