[evan_]

> Virtually everyone seriously condoning torture believe it is effective.

I think a very high number of "torture proponents" are simply in favor of hurting the "bad guys" and don't even care that there might be information to be had.

Donald Trump said it best, to an arena full of cheering supporters:

"If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing"

In his mind, and the minds of his constituents, the "information gathering" aspect is a sly wink at the other sadists in the room.

[kobayashi]

Donald Trump and his supporters are not the individuals who ordered the torture/enhanced interrogation (T/EI). If one watches/reads General Hayden's comments on the topic, he's disgusted by any call for punitive T/EI. He begins talking about this at about 34:50. https://youtu.be/GBx-ECt6vUo?t=34m50s

The discussion on the US' RDI program begins at about 30:25.

[cowardlydragon]

T/EI ?

What a cute military acronym.

[kobayashi]

I just made it up.

[ikeboy]

I did include two qualifiers there.

>In his mind, and the minds of his constituents, the "information gathering" aspect is a sly wink at the other sadists in the room.

I'm not so sure. You could have a model where the main purpose of torture is for information, and the value of that information is so much that you don't need a high chance of it being effective, and even if it's not effective there's not too much harm done. Trump has certainly claimed it to be effective.