I find this a little bit disingenuous:
Slate: One of the places where 24 and the real world have intersected most powerfully is on the question of torture. On 24, torture is regularly used in interrogation. Some critics believe that 24 actually plays to our desire to witness torture, that it is, in some sense, “torture porn.” How do you make sense of and justify the role of torture in the show?
Loceff: I absolutely do not believe that the show is, in any sense, torture porn. This is something we talk about a lot. Torture is of no interest to us as torture, and we’re not anxious to show it, nor do we want to watch it. We don’t want to go to any level of great detail in depicting it, and there are many times when we will pull back from the original idea because it seems too much. I think its real use in the show, aside from its narrative function, is to create dramatic conflict, conflict not just between two people but within characters as well. If you look at any given torture scene in the show, you’ll find that there’s something in it that shows someone’s distaste or disgust. And Jack Bauer’s decision to torture people for information in the past has cost him, because it’s shown other people just exactly what he’s capable of. Jack himself is appalled by what he feels he has to do, but he’s also convinced he has to do it. That is a real dramatic conflict.
Slate: One of the familiar critiques of using torture as an interrogation technique is that it doesn’t work. On 24 it tends to be very effective.
Loceff: I don’t know that torture works, and we don’t write it because we think it works. So, I don’t think any of us are trying to make a statement about the efficacy of it one way or the other.
Now, I am not a regular follower of the show. I watched some of the first two seasons and followed along with the TWOP recaps for the first three. So it is possible that I am missing some important nuance in the show. However, the writer’s description does not seem to match what actually happens on the show. The writer claims that torture is used sparingly and is not something they like to show. They further claim that it has had a deleterious effect upon Jack. If either is the case, then why does it happen so bloody often on the show, and why does Bauer never seem to suffer for his decisions to employ torture with the same frequency that Pizza Delivery drivers exceed the speed limit? The writers are simply not credible when they claim that they take the use of torture in the show seriously. It appears to be nothing more than a plot device they fall back upon either out of laziness or ideological bent.
The comments about the not trying to make a statement about the effectiveness of torture may be true, but whether they intend to or not, they show torture in a good light. Generally speaking, the tortured people always have information and the torture is effective in a very, very short period of time. If 24 aspired to any kind of veracity, six or seven episodes would be dedicated to showing Jack torturing someone to get information. We would see water boarding, electrocution, and vicious beatings for hours on end. And then we would have two episodes dedicated to showing Jack run off with the information the torture produced, only to discover that he had been lied to and sent on a wild goose chase. The last episode would show the terrorists smiling as Jack fails to foil the plot because he wasted time on the torture. But torture almost always works on the show, and it is almost always shown as quick and effective. Whether they intend to or not, they are showing torture as an acceptable, useful, even desirable option.
If they don’t want the show to be torture porn, they need to work a lot harder than they have to date.
leanleft
Kevin
tgirsch
Kevin T. Keith
Judd
I’ve never seen 24. But if torture is assumed to be as effective as this post says 24 implies, then we must assume most of the American POWs who suffered in North Vietnamese captivity, and claim to have withstood more severe tortures for longer periods, were lying. The NVA didn’t have scruples about torture.
It should also be noted that POWs generally did break eventually; one estimate is that 80% did, which would imply that unlimited torture does work over an extended period (not a brief period as in 24).
The idea that American ‘torture’ interrogation doesn’t work would imply either that the prisoners have vastly greater powers of resistance than American POWs, or that the interrogation doesn’t compare to NVA torture.
EG
No, not exactly. The POWS didn’t give up information — they aquiesced to being used for propoganda. Torture can be used to modify behavior over a long period of time; there is no evidence that it can be used to gain accurate information over any reasonable amount of time.
…there is no evidence that it can be used to gain accurate information over any reasonable amount of time.
In fact, the reason the law of evidence doesn’t allow testimony of admissions made after torture is because they are very unlikely to be accurate.
Len Cleavelin said,
“In fact, the reason the law of evidence doesn’t allow testimony of admissions made after torture is because they are very unlikely to be accurate.”
While they may be inaccurate, I don’t think that’s the reason; in general the laws of evidence don’t allow evidence gathered by illegal means, regardless of accuracy, and the intent in other cases is to discourage the illegal means rather than to improve the available evidence. Evidence aquired by illegal search, for example, may be just as accurate as that acquired by legal search, but it’s inadmissible to discourage illegal search.
Kevin, you’re probably right about propaganda statements rather than divulging information, and I was misinterpreting the phrase “made some sort of statement” in my source.
Of course torture works and it works 100 percent of the time with an experienced torturer. Only fails if the person dies. It seems the left just forgot to interview and investigate people in countries where they actually do torture people and I don’t mean the minor stuff you hear about the USA. BBC reporters came to a different conclusion when they interviewed real torturers. I wrote a satirical pretend “news story” on my blog about this. Dictatorships Bewildered: Torturers hit the breadlines.
The satire is how all the world torture departments closed up and the history books were changed after Jon Stewart announced torture doesn’t work on the Daily Show.
Torture just seed to stop working with post-2003 American Liberals. It was just fine before that eg. Algiers, eg Germany eg Chile eg China
eg. eg. eg….
It is still fine in the rest of the world. If you don’t want to torture people the moral high ground is to refuse to do it. The insane high low ground is to pretend it doesn’t work. Anybody can be broken. Notice the word “broken”.”"Broken” is the word that spoiled kids from permissive backgrounds (Liberal Leftists) don’t get til they experience it as I have.
Torture doesn’t work like it’s seen on 24, what you see there is more like abuse. Torture has a purpose to break people. Israelis can break 80 percent even before they get to torture.
Lastly, notice that a confident writer “Doesn’t know” what is obvious to him in the face of being PC. In the face of being PC people can’t even remember their names.
That just shows how effective torture is, in the the face of being punished with PC censorship, people will believe what they are guided to believe.
Welcome to understand the first step in the world of torture! The first step of success is mental manipulation, under guidance of pain!!
Nothing is so sickening as PC political interests brainwashing a population into belief that flies against common sense.
Choose to torure or not with your free will but for gods sake wake up from your mass hysteria!eria.t
Max
I would suggest that you pay a bit more attention to your history. Torutre has never gotten reliabel information ina timely manner. It is good for getting people to say what you want to hear and thats about it. In Algeria, for example, the info the French got was wrong — the radicals were trained to tell their torturers that members of the moderate resistance where actually terrorist operatives.
Just becasue you want to believe it doesn’t make it true. I would have thought that your life of harship and privatiation and stern discipline would have prevented you form haivng to learn that from spoiled kids from permissive backgrounds like liberal leftists.
kevin: you are re-writing history out of political expedience. The French got everything they needed , and so do the Chinese today and Boliva and all the rest.
You should interview the real torturers instead of using your imagination. Not ones who take photgraphs but ones who pull fingernails like Saddam’s henchmen did.
..
. I have nothing to learn from liberals except that they are hysterical and hate their daddies.
..
If you think you can’t be broken I’ll make a bet bolivian tortuers can break you in 24 hours. How much to bet? Any takers? Lets extend that to anyone and see if we can’t make an appointemt with any of the top tortureres in South America.
How long can you last and for how much money?
Denying the obvious begs the obvious.
And for that matter 10 million news articles about American mickey mouse abuse and practically nothing about the fingernail pullers of the world,.
Americans are so self-centered.
haagakure blade
I should add that i just kinda figured out how so many people are getting deceived. You got a pressure group cowing and terrorizing others saying “Torture doesn’t work” and no one has any experience so everyone just back off and say ok ok, whatever you u say boss!!
But in my case I HAVE been broken. Broken and cemented back together again. So i know, not think, it works. And I know to say otherwise is a denial of the basic human condition.
I know how it was done, chapter and verse. I think I could break anyone on earth because i know how it was done to me. But I don’t want to. I’m not taking any job applications for the position of toruturer.
That’s the difference between having morality and denying reality.
But I also know the news/entertainment mind washing techniques are effective. Corporate control can get and do the public to believe anything.
So i’ll just get outta here and leave you the last word in your propaganda fun.
Max
I am sorry, but your statements are nonsense. The French lost in Algeria, and they lost in part becasue torture did not provide them with what they needed. You can claim otherwise all you want, but you are either mistaken or lying. Here is the vaunted French torture regime in Algeria, for example:
This is well knwonw stuff – -well known, apaprenlty, except to you. And Algeria is th shinign light of how torure is supposed to be successful. The CIA, the Pentagon, all admit torture is uselss for obtaining accurate information. To insist otheriwse is to engage in a tough guy fantasy, where you alone know the truth about torture!
Oswald killed Kennedy by himself, black helicopters are not following you home, and torture does not provide accurate information.
no, your statements IE propaganda are nonsense.
Tell you what. Lets put it to the acid test. G surrender to the Brazilian Secret Service an d pretend dot be a spy. If you survive 20 days without squawking like a chicken telling every last detail of your life I’ll give you 100 bucks. If they break you you owe me 100 bucks after 30 years from now when you remember who you were.
Your position is insane, It is an open invitation to the world such as punch me , see if you can hurt me ..geez what an idiot! Not only are there people who can hurt you , they can make you think you are a chicken and quack like a duck.
You are a total idiot about torture. A guy lies , you check it out and punish him for lying eventually he never lies , eventually he tells you his every thought and doesn’t know dream from reality. It takes 24 to 48 hours to do this.
Your news item is just propaganda. The torturers interviewed by the BBC said the exact opposite about Algiers. You can always find propaganda to say the earth is flat if you want. Your intent is propaganda for a political cause and is thus tainted. I have no political cause except common sense. Your only intent is to play politics as of course you will “argue” ad nauseam. Go argue with a torturer see for yourself. They’ll set you straight, wake you up from your dream.
You ought to see the analysis of the torture departments dismantled in Chile. It’ll give you and indication of how widespread and detailed torture departments exist and have existed in the world int totalitarian countries for the last 50 years.
Geez, why do you think they do it? Because it is ineffective? Ridiculous. The BBC did realistic non partisan interviews with torturers. they’ll tell you a story that’ll wake you up.
Making up these lies for political expediency to support in this case i would suppose Anti-Americanism is worse that ridiculous. Taht is because it denies what is really happening in the world. It is like denying the Holocaust to deny that men can be are are torture d for information it denies all the pain that goes on in the world.
And the fact is that the world of torture is 99.999 percent in totalitarian countries and no one is looking at it. They are looking at torture which is not torture but mere mistreatment by some Americans and making this unrealistic thing out of it.
To pervert reality for the sake of political maneuvering is worse tahn just sick\ , it denies humanity for for the sake of unfeeling political expediency.
It is in the final judgment , immoral.