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

look for the following indications that torture had failed: the privileging of information obtained
through torture over that obtained through alternative means (documentary, observational, etc.); failure
to investigate information obtained under torture (or to discard information revealed to be false); and
most importantly, whether or not the torture regime devolved into a deceptive cycle. The last of these
in particular is crucial – a deceptive cycle can only exist when the authorities are unable to recognize
and discard false information systematically. Where this is the case, there can be no incentive for the
captive tell the truth and every incentive to take advantage of the information asymmetry to spread
misinformation. In other words, how the authorities behave towards the ignorant informs us of how
they behave towards the knowledgeable.
In the following chapters, I examine each of these cases in order to test these implications by
seeing if the causal mechanisms I identify are present. The Salem chapter examines why the trials in
Salem Village in 1692 were so fundamentally different from those both in New England more broadly
and in the home country, resembling instead the processes identified above as the continental model of
witch-trial. I argue that the sole difference between Salem and previous witch-trials was in the use of
torture (and but a single instance at that), leading the authorities to accept a version of events that
caused them to unleash forces they ultimately could not control. The logic of torture was then
replicated by the Court of Oyer and Terminer, as the accused were presented with the choice between
confessing falsely and naming others, or murder by the authorities. The Algerian chapter examines
both the role of torture by the French during the Battle of Algiers, as well as the use of torture by the
leadership of the FLN itself as they attempted to locate the traitors in their midst. I argue that torture
was not responsible for France's greatest successes in the Battle, and that the largest victory France was
to have in that war instead arose precisely from convincing the FLN to use torture against itself: in both
cases, torture on each side ended up benefiting the enemy, despite the fact that both sides were aware of
the potential dangers that torture presents. Finally, the chapter on the War on Terror examines the use
of torture in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and in the CIA blacksites around the world, and attempts to
determine how much useful information was gained, at significant cost to the United State's moral
authority. I argue that the lack of any significant intelligence coups from torture masks a far greater
failure to properly vet information obtained via torture, in one instance even leading the United States
to accept misinformation that resulted in the invasion of Iraq itself.
All four cases show how states end up harming themselves through torture, even in cases where
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