Trying to keep a secret - a hypothesis

**KafirChobee** · 11-07-2006, 06:09

You're an advance element troop that has been captured just prior to D-day 1941. You know the attack will occur some time within the next few days. The SS tortures you - if you divulge the information it could mean the deaths of tens of thousand of allied lives, or even the failure of the invasion.

Do you give in - because of the pain? Or, swallow it as the true patriot you are?

Then again, you are a terrorist that knows the plan to blow a nuclear plan or chemical factory, drive a freightor loaded with "spent" nuclear fuel into a port with explosives, knows the where abouts of Osama (3 hours ago), etc.

What pain can you maintain? And then, what BS will you create to redirect the attention from your mates?

Eisenhower created the Military Code of Conduct, after the Korean conflict (war for some). He did so because of the conduct of most of the soldiers that had been captured by the Chinese. See, the China guys started out with straight torture - but, what they found out is --- if you give a crumb to someone, a bit of bread for informing on their comrade - but don't harm the comrad? Well, what you get is cooperation. It may not be genuis - but it is devisive. [The men that were POWs when put on a room (library, pool tables, etc) just sat there - no one conversed, no one played pool - they might read, but mostly ... they just sat.]

How much pain can you take to keep a secret? Long enough to justify Dubya's call for torture?

**Prince of the Poodles** · 11-07-2006, 06:45

Hmm..

I imagine(and expect) that the American military will do whatever it can to retrieve information that will save American lives, and the terrorists will do everything they can to prevent that information from getting out.

The solution? Well I know what I would do if I had the chance with one of those thugs...

Edit.. d-day was '44

**Crazed Rabbit** · 11-07-2006, 07:40

How much pain can you take to keep a secret? Long enough to justify Dubya's call for torture?

What call for torture? Or is this yet another of your 'light on facts and actual knowledge' rants?

Crazed Rabbit

**Banquo's Ghost** · 11-07-2006, 07:58

You don't have a choice.

Torture has been guaranteed to get you to talk since mediaeval times. Modern militaries work on the basis that if sensitive information is captured, the enemy will know it in detail in a couple of days maxmimum - usually the default is "assume they know now".

The best that can be done is to provide misinformation. This is the thrust of anti-interrogation training - give information that will satisfy the torturers but innaccurate enough that minimises impact. Like saying 1941 instead of 1944 - sounds like a simple slip.

But don't think you can be a hero.

**Hepcat** · 11-07-2006, 09:40

I would make as convincing a lie as I could and then if they don't believe me plead and beg and look pathetic until they did. Hopefully it would work. After all, if they were going to kill me anyway it wouldn't make any difference what I told them.

I just hope that my would be torturers don't read the backroom.

**ezrider** · 11-07-2006, 10:10

Originally Posted by Hepcat

I would make as convincing a lie as I could and then if they don't believe me plead and beg and look pathetic until they did. Hopefully it would work. After all, if they were going to kill me anyway it wouldn't make any difference what I told them.

I just hope that my would be torturers don't read the backroom.

It would make a difference to you, in that, if the didn't believe you, you'd probably get tortured a lot more. I'm sure its pretty hard to act pathetic after having your thumb in a thumbscrew and your balls electrocuted for the 100th time.

- I often wonder how many members of this board are working directly/indirectly for intelligence agencies. Please write you names below so I can report...
I mean... so I feel safer, yeah safer.

**yesdachi** · 11-07-2006, 15:04

Depending on what information I had I think I could hold out forever. If the information was not of some critical importance I would sing like a bird or make up a believable fake.

The tricky part is knowing who your captors are, if it’s the US, I’m aware they won’t kill me so it would be easier to hold out. If it were an extremist group I would consider myself dead already so why bother giving in, the pain from torture will be the last thing I ever feel, might as well feel it as long as I can (tasting vinegar is better than tasting nothing). A swift death is BS, I don’t mind the idea of a long and painful death because I know as soon as my life is gone I will be in haven, guilt free because I didn’t risk the lives of others by exposing critical information. I don’t fear death or pain, but I would have a difficult time if a loved one was at risk thou, but again if I know my captors I would know if the threat is hollow or valid, the US is not going to behead my child but I don’t know about some extremist. (Not a bad idea for the US captors to impersonate someone known to be more lethal)

That said I would probably break in an hour.

who knows until you’ve been there. Perhaps the best defense against torture is being ignorant.

**Don Corleone** · 11-07-2006, 15:33

I can all but guarantee nobody here would hold up for more than an hour or two with a dentist with a drill but no novocaine. Think Marathon Man. Yes, at some point the dentist is going to run out of healthy roots to drill into, but that's the fun part, then he can start pouring irritants down into all those nice holes....

They wave a dental drill at me and I'd give up my own mother. No kidding, how do you deal with pain of that intensity?

**Kanamori** · 11-07-2006, 15:55

I hesitate to say what I would do under incredible pain. I don't know, I've never been tortured. I've had a broken bone, nearly a 3rd degree burn, and really that's about it. I would try to hold out, but frankly, the basic human instincts in the unconcious of our brains are related to human survival in response to incredible pain and fear. My guess is that it would take decades of practiced meditation to hold out.

People have thought all sorts of things for millenia and been terribly wrong.