Tortuous Logic

Here's a weird piece by Juliet Lapidos in Slate that claims an episode of ST:TNG has something to teach us about torture. I recognize people can be moved by the emotional power inherent in dramatizing moral questions. But in fiction, one can easily stack the deck. I'd no more anyone get her position on torture from an episode of Star Trek than I'd suggest she get it from 24.

Picard is tortured for information (which he does not have) by the Cardassians. He ends up saying: "Torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. One wonders it is still practiced."

As I've noted before, this argument seems to imply that if torture worked, it'd be worth a try. Lapidos goes on in this vein:

The interrogator has, in fact, won the battle of wills, though he'll never have the satisfaction of knowing it. But what, exactly, has he won? In the end, Picard was willing to tell his captor anything at all and was so distraught that he was willing to believe a transparent falsehood. It follows that any further information would have been hopelessly compromised.

Yep, that's how it can work out on a TV show. Or, following the plots of many other movies and TV episodes, you can get great information from violence, or the threat of violence.

In real life, any information you get from an enemy, whether by torturing him or putting him up at the Four Seasons (or splitting the difference and putting him up at Motel 6), is questionable. He is the enemy after all, and has reason to lie. This is why you investigate any information you receive. And if you're willing to have torture be part of your information-gathering arsenal, I assume when you do use it (which is probably rarely), you make it clear that anything the prisoner claims will be checked out, and if not true, things will only get worse.