Funny thing, I actually have served in the military, albeit not the US military. Where I come from, all men are conscripted for 2-3yrs.

Anyway, my younger brother and another friend, were both selected to undergo special forces training. Their training did involve being subject to torture. Due to the nature of his vocation (i.e. deep infiltration behind enemy lines) there was always the possibility of enemy capture. Therefore, they had to be conditioned against torture.

My brother is still a little cagey about the details, but from what I can gather, for a period of 3 weeks, they were subject to constant mental abuse, sleep deprivation and moderate starvation, and perhaps some level of physical coercion. Anybody who revealed anything more than their name, rank and serial no would be considered having to failed the course.

Anyway, to my point. In times of war (real war, not the bogus war on terror) torture is commonplace to illicit information. Is the information usually unreliable? Evidence would seem to suggest that. But in the murky world of intelligence/counter-intelligence, all information is dubious. A paid informant could be just as untrustworthy as a tortured POW. Disinformation, double agents etc. I recall in Sun Tzu's Art of War, the sage advises commanders to supply spies with false information (which they don't know is false) and send them into enemy territory precisely so that they could be captured and feed the wrong information to the enemy under torture.

Just my 2 cents if we're discussing torture vis-a-vis the military.

The way I look at it, efficacy is the wrong argument to use against torture. Wars from the far reaches of antiquity have been won on superior intelligence, and our forebears did not have our moral reservations about torture. You do the math. The cost-benefit analysis seems to me the stronger argument.

Sources? Well, for one, this article already cites the France-Algeria war and quotes that torture was used, sometimes successfully, to obtain intelligence.

However, to draw from more recent history, pls see the following NYT article:-

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/world/middleeast/22detain.html?_r=1

Let me be clear. I do NOT believe that a single anecdote of a successful use of torture proves that torture is generally effective. I do NOT believe that a single anecdote justifies a general policy using torture.

However, I do believe that there have been instances where torture has been effective. For that reason, those opposed to torture should avoid trying to reject it on the grounds of efficacy. Simply, if we accept that it has worked in some instances, it must be acknowledged that torture can obtain useful information, however remote the chance of success. In a sufficiently dire situation, such as the "Ticking Time Bomb" situation, desperation may cause even reasonable men to latch onto the remotest chance of success.

Given that danger, we can either (i) ban torture entirely on moral or cost-benefit grounds (notwithstanding its marginal efficacy) OR (ii) we allow it in only the most marginal of circumstances, with a high degree of checks & balances

Not a comment, but a real question.

In the last line, you say "Because if you want a real asymmetry of information -- all you have to do is put Stiglitz and Summers in the same room."

So are you saying Stiglitz knows his stuff while Summers is clueless, OR that Summers has a good handle on the crisis and Stiglitz doesnt know what he's talking about, OR that any person sharing a room with Stiglitz and Summers is by default going to know less than them (obviously)?

"... London, Singapore or Dubai are sometimes mentioned as possible rival financial centers that would be eager to welcome the kind of overpaid financiers who wrecked the U.S. and global economy. "

I'm from Singapore, and I think a distinction has to be made between what the Singapore Government wants, and what the Singapore people want. The Singapore Government wants to encourage the rapid growth of this country as a financial hub, and has been actively encouraging expats to immigrate here. All kinds of kickbacks.

The Singaporean people on the other hand think this stinks. Leaving aside the fact that the best jobs now seemed to be reserved for those with no stake in the country, our experience with the "best and the brightest" being sent here is less than stellar. Its an open secret that MNCs ship their losers and dead-enders here. A common complaint from local talented professionals is having to work under an expat boss whose talents are dubious at best (unless you count consuming large amounts of alcohol a talent). The inevitable conclusion we've reached is that their primary qualification is having white skin and a foreign passport.

Now it seems we can expect another great exodus of your filthy unwashed, except this time they will be even louder, more obnoxious and (joy of joys!) possessing an even more bloated sense of self-entitlement.

What next, you gonna send over every illegal immigrant from south of the border with a suspicious looking cough and fever, as roving ambassadors? Or certain bearded extremists in orange jumpsuits who have been recently evicted from their erstwhile Cuban abode, as cultural attaches?

Please. Dispose. Of. Your. Own. Trash.