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

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this area, while the FLN who faced them had their own spies penetrating much of the colonial state structure. In contrast, the United States confronted an insurgency in Iraq (as well as a coordinated terrorist movement world wide) with significant problems for gathering intelligence. In contrast to the French experience in Algeria, the United States could not make use of a loyal ethnic minority (comparable to the Pieds Noirs), nor was it capable of generating information through the use of a block warden system – instead it was forced to rely heavily on a reformed Iraqi army and police force that offered considerable opportunities for infiltration and cooptation by the insurgency. (Keath, 2004; Vincent, 2005) This problem was compounded by a chronic shortage of arabic-speaking analysts in the military, leaving US forces reliant on Iraqi translators who, along with the newly instituted Iraqi police force, found themselves easy targets for the insurgency. (Diamond, 2004) In Salem, there was little to no ability to ascertain facts independent of torture for more philosophical reasons: not only was witchcraft a crime which often lacked physical evidence, but the very state of science itself prevented much of the 'evidence' presented to the court from being evaluated in its proper light. 33 The third condition that underlies the data concerns the reliability of the torturers: the potential for an agent-principle dilemma. The torturer's incentives will only be to generate true information when truth is what the state rewards him for generating. If the state cannot separate truth from fiction, or rewards the torturer for the sheer amount of information he generates, then the torturer is best off accepting anything the captive reveals. What this implies is that the same information asymmetry that poses an issue for torture for information between the captive and the state also exists between the state and the torturer. In Salem this was not at issue: the magistrates stood little to gain from maximizing the number of accused, as opposed to revealing the satanic conspirators. 34 Similarly, the torturers of the FLN had no incentive to over-accuse: every execution meant another FLN soldier unavailable to fight the French. The United States engaged in torture during the War on Terror with varied institutional ability to reign in this agent-principle dilemma, ranging from the Central Intelligence Agency at the most reliable to the National Guard at the least institutionalized extreme. The French in Algeria, on the other hand, combated their own enemies with a conscripted army: with the exception of the elite para 33 Interestingly, it as precisely a scientific breakthrough that would provide much of the ammunition to end the trials: specifically, Newton's recent experiments on eye-sight would delegitimate much of the testimony on which the trials depended. 34 Unlike the witch trials on the continent, the property of the accused in Salem was not seized and distributed among the court, except to pay for their own imprisonment. European witch hunts were marked by considerable financial gains for successful judges and 'witch-finders.' (Currie, 1968) 33
units, those engaged in the application of torture were drawn from civilian life with minimal indoctrination. I expect that the less the incentives of the torturers reflect the institutional incentives of the authorities, the greater the potential for torture to devolve into a deceptive cycle. The outcomes can be theoretically divided along a continuum in terms of the strength of the deceptive cycle that resulted from the use of torture. At one end of the spectrum, we can imagine a situation in which the state is able to gather good information that leads to better information over time, or at the very least does not degenerate into a 'witch hunt.' At the other, there lurks the deceptive cycle, where bad information actively drives out the good. I expect the following results. The cycle should be weakest where the state faces an actual conspiracy with reliable agents in a strong information environment – that is, one that most closely approximates the intelligence gathering capabilities of the modern state's ability to 'discipline' in the Foucaultian sense of the term. Conversely, the cycle should be strongest when a state with little ability to empirically verify information obtained through unreliable agents confronts a non-existent (or profoundly misunderstood) threat. Where only one of these conditions holds (e.g., an informed state confronts an unreal opponent), I expect the cycle to exist in a more attenuated form – i.e., the number of innocents swept up does not explode as quickly, and/or the cycle is brought more swiftly to a close. Table 1: Relationship between Independent Variables and the Deceptive Cycle Independent Variables (Outcome) Strong Information Environment + Reliable Agents Strong Information Environment + Unreliable Agents Weak Information Environment + Reliable Agents Conspiracy Real/ State's Priors Correct USA/CIA (weakest cycle) French in Algeria Conspiracy Unreal/ State's Priors Incorrect FLN in Algeria (medium cycle) (weak cycle) (medium cycle) USA in Iraq (weak/medium cycle) 34 Salem Witch Trials (medium/strong cycle)
Page 1 and 2: THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEG
Page 3 and 4: This work is dedicated to my wife,
Page 5 and 6: TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT vii 1. T
Page 7 and 8: ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Se
Page 9 and 10: judged by their effects. The deonto
Page 11 and 12: etter than chance on average, no ma
Page 13 and 14: from fiction, and also in the time
Page 15 and 16: the cases differ in how well inform
Page 17 and 18: characterization by method. Torture
Page 19 and 20: gather such evidence was strong, to
Page 21 and 22: ineffective. Something must prevent
Page 23 and 24: The description which it would be n
Page 25 and 26: powerful themselves. 21 While histo
Page 27 and 28: known by the misnomer 'torture-ligh
Page 29 and 30: substitute for intelligence gatheri
Page 31 and 32: This lack of good data on torture t
Page 33 and 34: found that the procedure can cause
Page 35 and 36: captive who has faced torture, and
Page 37 and 38: state cannot credibly commit to pla
Page 39: incentive not to present as favorab
Page 43 and 44: of causal mechanisms in a very dire
Page 45 and 46: the threats they face are real, whe
Page 47 and 48: 3.1. Introduction. CHAPTER 3 THE WI
Page 49 and 50: discovered by Sir Thomas Newton and
Page 51 and 52: two, and the execution of the convi
Page 53 and 54: years preceding the outbreak at Sal
Page 55 and 56: these women - non-Church members, p
Page 57 and 58: Hubbard) and four grown and married
Page 59 and 60: innocent, and recalled that when he
Page 61 and 62: crowd was deeply and troublingly mo
Page 63 and 64: it was precisely in these terms tha
Page 65 and 66: came to an end. Misogyny was all to
Page 67 and 68: only the witch-trials that brought
Page 69 and 70: partners in their own (apparent) de
Page 71 and 72: possibility would be to question th
Page 73 and 74: John Bridges (whose own wife and da
Page 75 and 76: she again broke down and named seve
Page 77 and 78: forcing the already convicted to re
Page 79 and 80: We can thus see Tituba's confession
Page 81 and 82: Samuell Parris. 70 The strongest ev
Page 83 and 84: order to purge political dissidents
Page 85 and 86: torture as a failure based on this
Page 87 and 88: torture - the state will apply it e
Page 89 and 90: time, the government in Paris was c
Page 91 and 92:
for two reasons - first, because Me
Page 93 and 94:
The Soummam conference in the Summe
Page 95 and 96:
one of the primary justifications f
Page 97 and 98:
DOP in particular is instructive fo
Page 99 and 100:
us stops in the city center. These
Page 101 and 102:
one that would turn the dangers of
Page 103 and 104:
dismantling of the ZAA organization
Page 105 and 106:
found in the literature: the revela
Page 107 and 108:
In fact, the use of torture did hav
Page 109 and 110:
e.g.), by March (when the DPU had b
Page 111 and 112:
Paul Teitgen appears to have been c
Page 113 and 114:
the French public. 95 Secondly, the
Page 115 and 116:
conditions theoretically necessary
Page 117 and 118:
the reasons for holding the detaine
Page 119 and 120:
y military interrogators. (Washingt
Page 121 and 122:
fact come verbatim from a 1957 jour
Page 123 and 124:
ole in the acquisition of intellige
Page 125 and 126:
to those believed to have informati
Page 127 and 128:
name for metanetwork analysis. 102
Page 129 and 130:
other words, the CIA High Value Det
Page 131 and 132:
Padilla was accused by KSM of plott
Page 133 and 134:
and an enemy of the United States,
Page 135 and 136:
alternative mechanism) by Darius Re
Page 137 and 138:
York Times, 09/12/2005) Insofar as
Page 139 and 140:
these interrogations were conducted
Page 141 and 142:
al-Qaeda is structured, names of in
Page 143 and 144:
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: The Misleadin
Page 145 and 146:
problem by the authorities - and ye
Page 147 and 148:
situations (France in Algeria and V
Page 149 and 150:
Jack Bauer was used as justificatio
Page 151 and 152:
Biderman, Albert D. “Effects of C
Page 153 and 154:
Crelinstein, Ronald and Alex Schmid
Page 155 and 156:
History Teacher. 30:4 (1997): pp. 4
Page 157 and 158:
International Council on Security a
Page 159 and 160:
Lewis, Neil A. “Red Cross Finds D
Page 161 and 162:
Obuchowski, Chester W. “Algeria:
Page 163 and 164:
Schiemann, John W. “Interrogation
Page 165 and 166:
Barack Obama is Inviting the Next A
Page 167 and 168:
United States, Department of Defens
Page 169:
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Patrick Armshaw
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