Review on CIA's dumb intelligence (article below)
I agree with with the writer's view that "the best intelligence is obtained through persuasion rather than coercion." Persuasion and coercion are both very different. Coercion refers to the use of force and intimidation to dig out information from a certain party whereas the use of persuasion involves verbal interaction between 2 parties until a common and basic understanding is achieved. The use of persuasion would present the possibility of, for example, terrorists successfully acknowledging the other party's beliefs and might even 'change sides.' Not only does this avoid brutal, inhumane treatment to the convict, but it allows the exchange of information of greater reliabilty and accuracy.
Although better information can be obtained with the use of persuasion, it does not necessarily mean that it is indeed an ideal form of interrogation. Many terrorists are stubborn and places a lot of faith in their beliefs. In other words, it is not practical. It is due to this type of situations that agencies such as the CIA had to depend on coercion. Torture is certainly an efficient, reliable way to achieve obedience. As stated in the passage, it has enabled the CIA to obtain certain useful information. However, like what the writer stated, poeple will say anything to escape pain. The information they give might therefore not be trustworthy. The freedom to present false claims can never be eliminated. The risk of the information being totally out of place is indeed very high.
The writer stated that Obama is such who does not approve of CIA's interrogation methods which is the reason he claims for a more transparent system.
However, I personally feel that interrogations would never solve the issue on terrorism just as the writer stated in his concluding sentence. It only enables society to foresee upcoming dangers enabling us to anticipate certain attacks. Therefore, the main focus should be on how to reduce or eliminate terrorism as a whole. If not, terrorists would just continue their never-ending line of attacks against society.
its true that using pain to get information is fast and effective and also true that people avoid pain and would lie but, the main issue is if they are prevented from being able to use this method and have to use less painful method, then the problem here is time. how long do you need to persuade the terrorist to tell them their plans?? would by then result in more death? urgency is the key. by being able to know their plans before hand, we can save many life than would then be innocently lose. that is a point to consider. being able to predict their attack is a form of deterrence as they would need more time to plan a more strategic and better position to attack and this does give us an edge. terrorism is something more complex and is a complicated issue that why it is difficult to stop or eliminate it forever. the best thing we can do is to predict their attacks and save as many people as possible as we slowly eat them up. so that is something to consider and you should state how we can solve this issue. is persuasion effective? os should other methods be use?
ReplyDeleteAlthough you have said that terrorists by acknowledging the other party's beliefs and may change sides. But there may also be a case that the terrorists do not accept the negotiation. Persuation do not gurantee "successfully acknowledging the other party's beliefs " thus its not a valid example in my opnion.
ReplyDeleteFor the 2nd paragraph i think more analysis could be done, most of the points are just explaining what the writer felt and not really a review of the situation.
Gil
Firstly, i feel that Obama's view on the ICA's treatment is irrelevant. This is due to the sole fact that the ICA is an intelligence unit that was set out to do only one thing, that is to get intelligence. So the main purpose is to obtain the intel by any means necessary. Furthermore, the ICA is a military division where its operations are kept secret. His view on transparency of the ICA is impossible as this will lead to the release of national secrets.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it is human instinct in which they will do anything to survive, thus people thing that the information that is told upon torture is true. However, this may not be true as the terrorist may also thought about such scenario where they were captured and tortured. Information will be provided, but it may be a set up to take more lifes.
Lastly, the review is still based in USA, do stat on what we can do in singapore to keep our nation and neighboring countries safe.