The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

examining it through the lens of rational choice. The terrible cycle of purges unleashed by Amirouche
and others in the bled followed the same pattern identified in Salem Village: where the torturer's
preconceptions (based on spectral evidence, or GRE false-flags) are incorrect, the use of torture leads
to a cycle of denunciations with a profoundly dangerous effect on the group that hopes to benefit from
coerced interrogation. For the French in the Battle of Algiers, torture does not appear to have gained
the French much intelligence, but it did lead to a widening and systematic violence perpetrated on the
Muslim population that would severely damage France's ability to find a political solution to the
Algeria question. The failure of torture cannot be measured in terms of the information given by the
knowledgeable – rather, it can be inferred by necessity from the fact that the French were not able
systematically to weed out misinformation given by ignorant captives. The spread of torture also
affected the willingness of the French populace to pay the costs considered necessary to keep Algeria
French. And this result came about despite the fact that the leaders of the French forces were
particularly alive to the political nature of revolutionary war – despite the fact that they knew the
danger in torturing large numbers of ignorants.
By examining torture in the Casbah and the bled, we can compare two cases that are similar in
important ways. Not only did the two cases occur at the same time, and largely in the same place, they
were also geared towards combating an actual conspiracy, by authorities whose interests militated
against indiscriminate coercion, and where both were able to operate in an information environment
that offered the potential for verifying the information educed. The major difference between them was
in their prior beliefs about the nature of that conspiracy: whereas the French were generally well
informed about the nature of their opposition, the FLN colonels were convinced to focus their torture
regime on those who were outside of, and ignorant of, the real conspiracy. Nonetheless, both cases
ended in a deceptive cycle that caused irreparable harm to each side. For the FLN, the costs were
paralysis, the decimation of the dynamic political cadres of Wilaya 4, and the loss of two of their most
effective leaders, Amirouche and Si M'Hammed, at the hands of their own men. For the French, the
costs were, if anything, worse. Not only was any political solution ultimately precluded by the terror
inflicted on innocent Muslims, the torture regime bred an alliance between the military and the colons
that brought down the Fourth Republic itself. The torture of ignorant and innocent captives on both
sides was not the result of negligence or irrationality: rather it was the necessary outcome of using
torture as a means of gathering information, and its result was the sparking of a cycle of deception.
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