[redrockcoulee]

If I remember correctly people in the intelligence industry stated during the Bush period that information obtained during torture was unreliable. This was dismissed by people who were not trained in this field such as Rumsfeld or Cheney. John McCain who knows more about the effectiveness of torture than I do stated it does not work. He gave up the front four of the Packers or something like that.

If a country decided that they are more than willing to take the risk to use a method that is internationally illegal and claimed by experts that it does not work there must be a mechanism in place to safe guard the innocents that end up being arrested and in addition a high amount of compensation involved as this might be a deterrent to those in charge not to act on bad information. From the witch trial days to today it is know that those under torture will provide the torturer with what they want, names of other people involved and they will give names to stop the torture. The names could be of anyone. I think I was being tortured Mr Harper and LaVar Payne would be the people I would name first.

Intelligence agents or former agents claim that befriending those in custody is more effective and more accurate. But then some on the right think that is coddling to the enemy and being too soft instead of focusing on what is effective and moral. If torture was the best and most accurate method of obtaining information I would have a struggle with the question. morality versus mortality. But if it is neither moral nor accurate then why not use methods that work and are ethical? Or is it ideologically driven? I do not know however it seems that those who are on the right side of the political spectrum seem to be more likely to support torture than those to the left but I do not have numbers to back that , it is just an impression. I would very strongly suspect that those on either side of the spectrum want themselves their families and their country safe regardless of what they say about each other. The Harper government is on record stating they make policy on their opinions and are not concerned about facts. They have said so in the House of Commons.

What to do with the info they were given? They have to act and investigate but any investigation must take into account the source and the method of obtaining the info and knowledge that it is more likely unreliable. They cannot ignore it but they cannot take it as factual either.