Friday, March 23, 2012
Is Torture Necessary?
When i read "Mark Danner's article "After September 11: Our State of Exception", i felt a strong sense of anger towards the government/CIA/all involved in torturing an innocent man. I had strong feelings of anger at the fact that they were able to get away with it because of how "high up and spread" the blame was placed. But i began to look at this from multiple angles. Torture is nothing new. It happened in many civilizations throughout history. The question that then came to my mind is, "Would this incident of torturing an innocent man have been scrutinized the same had the man been guilty of the crimes accused?" People are quick to jump and say that torture is wrong, that it goes against humanity, and that it shouldent be practiced, and i agree with this for the most part, but what i notice in myself is that if this man had not been innocent, would i have had the same feelings about the CIA/government? Would i have felt a deep sense of sorrow for the man? I dont think i can say i would. I propose the same questions to the class: "If the man was not innocent, would you have the same feelings about this article? Would you still believe that torture is not justified to be used against a person involved in plotting terrorism? To those who believe torture goes against all that is humanity, how do you propose we treat those found guilty of either plotting terrorism or withholding information that could save the lives of millions?
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This is a very important topic and problem to bring up. I completely understand what is being said here. We tend to rationalize torture when it has done us good but when torture tactics backfire, everyone attacks the practice. So is it good or is it bad? Well the answer is both. I will not deny that I am much of a hypocrite when it comes to this topic of torture, I feel that many others are the same way. When torture tactics work and our government obtains vital information, I will praise our government. However, in situations like this when "we got the wrong guy" I can't help but to feel anger and sorrow, after all they just tortured an innocent man.
ReplyDeleteThink about the view point we are taking when discussing this topic. " Looking at this from different angles" is very necessary. I hope law makers and CIA officials do the same. Hopefully then we can have new laws and restrictions to prevent instances where innocent people are tortured.
The idea of torture in my eyes is that of something that has always happened in the past no matter what nation you are in. Now that is seen as banned and that you need special laws to investigate other people now according to international law is ridiculous. We are just trying to find ways around the idea of torturing other people to make it seem on paper less painful. I cannot feel sympathy towards the man in this article for being tortured because he was still on the watch list. I praise the government for taking in people and getting information out of them at any point they seem necessary to protect the government and its people but, if you are a person that likes to speak out and likes to be heard as a person who speaks badly and against another nation, I’m sure that nation will suspect you as a threat. In particular when your ideas are heard by other people. I do hate to see an innocent person be tortured for the being a suspect. But what truly makes you a suspect to be on the “watch” list in the first place. I’m sure every government no matter what has a watch list. It just depends on when they need to act on that person. The thing I do not like is that the government can pick and choose what to release to the public people. It’s kind of scary how a person can simply vanish off the face of the map and be in an unknown/secret location to be questioned. Even though I’m not saying that everyone should be tortured, it just worked in the past and why change what works. The only thing they should change is the possibility of choosing the wrong person. I know you can never be 100% efficient but when you hit 99 out of 100. That one person you picked that was wrong can still make everything you did that was good now seem bad.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good question, Jon, and it's one that baffles a lot of people. In my opinion, I think the risk of torturing an innocent person is too high. With that being said, I don't believe that we should torture anybody. I'm not trying to be a peacemaker, and I don't think that anybody should get away with plotting threats against our country. However, I see two major flaws in the practice of torture:
ReplyDelete1. You can never know if you're torturing the right person. You may think they know something, but you don't know what they do or do not know, and in that case, you could be asking for an answer from a person that doesn't have one.
2. Torturing a person may never get them to speak or to tell the truth. The fact of the matter is, these suspected terrorists don't want to give up information, but they don't want to continue to receive torture. The solution? Lie. It's as easy as that. You lie to the CIA officials, they check your story out, and they find out that it's wrong. As a suspected terrorist, a lie will buy them time and temporary freedom from constant torture. And the CIA officials won't kill them for lying; they still need information.
Those two major flaws convince me that, even if torture works sometimes, it won't work all the time. Too many flaws exist. With that being said, I don't have an answer of a way to get information instead of using torture. However, torture, in my opinion, is not the best way either.
The question of whether torture is justified usually provokes a yes or no answer, but it really has its ups and its downs. (I would say mostly downs!) I looked up torture on about.com and it said that the pros of not legalizing torture are:
ReplyDelete•In a context where torture has already been used against prisoners who have not even been suspected of terrorist affiliation (as in the case of Abu Zubaydah), legalization of torture would result in routine, large-scale implementation.
•If the United States practices torture against its prisoners, other nations will be able to use torture with greater impunity.
•Torture invalidates confessions, creating "evidence" that cannot be used in a court of law. And as noted above, torture generates false leads that can derail ongoing investigations.
This is much like what Bethany was saying and I also agree with her in that torture has too many down sides for it to be the main way of the government getting information. Then again, I’m not aware of any other way, but there has to be something out there.
As to your question about if the man was not innocent, how would I feel? I think from the beginning, when he started talking about when he woke up, I already had a feeling of sadness. Even if he wouldn’t have been declared innocent, the same feeling would have remained from the beginning because personally, I think torture is simply wrong and it goes against our rights.
When I read the article I had the same exact thought. I do not think that I would feel as bad if Abu was indeed guilty, however, when I really start thinking about the issue here, someone or something different in me starts speaking. In any ways, if he was actually part of the mastermind behind al-Qaeda, he would still be a human being. Personally, I think torture is not as efficient because for guilty people, such as many of the Guantanamo prisoners, there is no future. They have nothing to lose (think about suicide bombers), I do not think for such people it really matters how much you torture them. They have their ideals their principles and their extreme viewpoints and in many cases, I suppose, they would not care to provide any information, that is so desperately needed by our government. I mean, would someone who had indeed volunteered to kill himself in name of his religous beliefs care much about being tortured? Especially because by international law torturing cannot be fatal (even if it was fatal) a suicide bomber would be rather welcoming of such actions.
ReplyDeleteJon I think you raise a really good question here. It is simple however no matter how you answer there is always an impact. There are too few today that don’t look at the other side. Yes, it is sad that an innocent man was tortured. However, no one can honestly say how much torturing works, let alone how much it fails. Torturing is more often than no used to obtain top secret information. Thus, no one without that clearance will know if it worked.
ReplyDeletePeople can lie to get out of a beating but as some have said the interrogators will always find if the story is true or not. They don’t let someone go for the time being. Also, some have said that if we do it, other countries will do it as well. My response is that no matter what, the countries that have tortured Americans, will always torture Americans. It won’t change because we decided to lay off. American soldiers and citizens have been tortured and beheaded on tape before we laid a finger on anyone. Some things will never change and unfortunately like war, torture is one of them.