Torture...

...and why it only works on (and for) fools.

Ok, it comes down thus…

Big Bad Terrorist (BBT) is captured, questioned at length and threatened with waterboarding and/or other torture. BBT has trained against such tactics, knowing full well that such would be his fate if captured, so he tells the powers that be to pound sand.

The captors think that he know something… anything…specifics are irrelevant or worse, inconsequential.

They torture at length, and…

Lo, what words, through yonder lips do break?

He sputters, coughs and finally lets slip the fact that there’s a cell in LA planning to blow up Ahhnold and, with any skill, thousands of civilians, at some major sporting event. He provides a salient name. A location or two. The Feds go wild… LA is locked down and indeed three men are bagged with a truckload of ammonium nitrate and appropriate hardware. Trial is scheduled for August.

Big win… until the next day, when Manhattan, Boise or Houston is incinerated by the main bomb the main cell installed while BBT was bullshitting the bullshitters.

If terrorists (or anybody else) can find volunteers to die on multiple airplanes, they can certainly find volunteers to create multiple bomb plots. No cell members will need to know that under torture, leaders will ‘cave’ with one set of names to preserve the main objective.

Its called misdirection, and as Penn & Teller regularly demonstrate, it ain’t rocket science. Sad to say, it would make ‘saving’ LA quite the Phyrric victory.

OTOH, it’ll turn the vast majority of Americans into the same raving holy warriors they supposedly tortured people to stop. Exactly the lose/lose scenario desired by extremists.

Are they really that smart? Yes.
Are we really that dumb? Jury's still out.