Abu Zubayda And Mohammed's Fight Against Terrorism

Torture is known as the intentional infliction of either physical or psychological harm for the purpose of gaining something – typically information – from the subject for the benefit of the inflictor. Normal human morality would typically argue that this is a wrongful and horrendous act. On the contrary, to deal with the “war on terrorism” torture has begun to work its way towards being an accepted plan of action against terrorism targeting the United States. Terroristic acts perpetrate anger in individuals throughout the United States, so torture has migrated to being considered as a viable form of action through a blind eye. Suspect terrorists arguably have basic human rights and should not be put through such psychologically and physically damaging circumstances.

The CIA used waterboarding as an interrogation method to try to get leaders of Al Qaeda to talk. The dilemma came up when Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda leader, became uncooperative in prison. The George Bush administration held meetings to decide what interrogation methods would be legal. A modern form of waterboarding was deemed acceptable and the most extreme interrogation method listed. According to sources, waterboarding has been used on three top Al Qaeda officials (Ross, 2007). The CIA maintains that this method is effective and completely lawful.

They saw every Iraqi, Pakistani, Iranian or Saudi as a terrorist and a threat to their country. All were subject to a negative judgement without cause or trial. With the benefit of a passage of time we have learned that these feelings were misdirected and wrong. It was as though certain people, those of a different race and nationally, were robbed of their human rights and cast in the role of criminals solely because of their culture and the acts of groups they likely did not know. In the calm aftermath and a chance to reflect on this behaviour some American officials admitted that Abu Ghraib was the functional equivalent of the 9/11 attack, only committed this time by the United States (Greenberg 2005: 98).

You wake up in a dimly-lit room laying down, your back flat on a cold table, facing unfamiliar men standing over you. You attempt to move, but your arms and legs are strapped down leaving you completely defenseless. Panicking, you begin to scream, but your screams are cut short as a wet cloth is laid over your face. You feel water being poured over the cloth and you begin choking; you can’t breathe; you are drowning. You are being waterboarded. What you just experienced was one of many common interrogation techniques used to pry information from suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay naval base. These techniques,

Gaul Rahman, a suspected Afghan radical, was arrested and brought to a CIA-run prison within six weeks of the 9/11 attacks. Rahman was detained for the purposes of providing inside information on the bombings, as well as to shed light on possible future terrorist attacks to be committed on United States soil. A month after his arrival at the prison, guards entered his cell to discover a gruesome sight. As quoted by the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture, “In November 2002, Gaul Rahman was shackled to his cell wall and made to rest unclothed on the bare concrete floor. The next day, the guards found Gaul Rahman’s dead body.” The junior officer that insisted on such treatment of Rahman was recommended by the CIA to receive a cash award of $2,500 for his superior work. Though the CIA praised the officer, many American citizens were appalled at Rahman’s treatment as detailed in the report, and the public became divided over whether Rahman’s treatment was humane. The concept of torture as a just means of security has become a significant source of dispute among the American public. With such divisiveness having the potential to create further discord in regards to the justice system and additional situations in which the use of torture is considered, a re-evaluation of interrogation policies is crucial to gain a position of solidarity on the issue. Despite the belief that torture is an effective means of combating terrorism against domestic interests, the need for

In this video we hear from the man who was in charge of interrogating the person who planned 9/11. Jose Rodriguez, CIA interrogator, tells about how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would not give in to their interrogation so they used “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Waterboarding, giving the sensation of drowning, was used to try and break Mohammed. Little the they know it would take over 180 times of “being drowned” to finally speak up. Mohammed never thought he was going to die. He was allowed to sleep and drink ensure. Rodriguez thinks that all of the deprivation, waterboarding and manipulation finally cracked Mohammed. Rodriguez also ordered the destruction of the videos of the interrogation for the safety of the interrogators and their families.

That information was shared with the “president’s national security advisor” (Allen 10). March 2000, the CIA had found that “terrorist-Nawaf al-Hazimi-left Bangkok for Los Angeles.” Hazmi along with Khalid al-Midhar became two of the 9/11 hijackers and that Khalid was “known to have an U.S. visa” and had been able to come and go freely from the “United States from June 2000 to July 2001”(10). In 2001, FBI from the Minneapolis field office apprehended “Zacarias Moussaoui” and “were concerned about a threat to “target airlines” shared the possible information with “FBI headquarters and the CIA”(Allen 11). The [CIA] and the [FBI] “headquarters,” never seemed to to link what they had found to “warnings emanating” from the [CIA] itself about an impending terrorist attack,” or to a possible existence of “two al Qa’ida” plants from the Kuala Lumpur meeting, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi”(Allen 11).“High- level advisors even today still think that there must be some form of acquiring of information from possible domestic threats” (Lawner 2). The Supreme Court ruled back in 2004, that U.S., and foreign nationals can be detained unrestricted as long they are classified “enemy combatants”(Courtney, and Walter

Malcolm began to work with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, to expand the amount of black members in the religious group’s following. Malcolm X became the minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem and Temple No. 11 in Boston, while also founding new temples in Hartford and Philadelphia. It was then that he met Betty Sanders, who also changed her last name to “X.” They married on January 14, 1958, in Michigan, and she gave him six daughters. Malcolm continued his advocacy and also established a national newspaper,

Many of those detained in the military entrenched prisons inside Iraq, are subject to torture by one of many interrogators that are allowed to use any method necessary to gain intelligence on any of these two primary goals. The collection of the intelligence, was then used in many strikes against those who stood against the United States against the overall goal of creating a free Iraq.

An actual story told by a journalist that use to work for the CIA was 2 cases of advanced interrogation held by the CIA helped get the name of a messenger that had a secret route to deliver stuff to Osama Bin Laden. Both suspects before going under advanced interrogation went under regular interrogation first for over a month but said that they didn't know anything. Once put under advanced interrogation they released this information leading to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. This is a perfect example of how using advanced interrogation only if the situation is down to a matter of time works. The killing of Bin Laden also help lead to stopping future attacks planned by the Al Qaeda. Helping to prove that in certain situations advanced interrogation does work, should be used in similar situations to this to continue to stop future attacks before they

On December 9, 2014, a 528 page document was released to the public known as the “CIA Torture Report”. It contains details of the CIA’s (Central Intelligence Agency) “enhanced” interrogation. The document, which is actually a summary of the 6,700 page report states that the United States, has been torturing its detainees in foreign countries in order to get confessions or answers from them. The many tactics used by the CIA include but not limited to, facial and abdominal slaps, rectal “feeding” and/or rehydration, ice-water baths, sleep deprivation for more than a week, shackling in stress positions, isolation, sensory deprivation, water-boarding, and walling (being slammed against a wall repeatedly). Detainees were also told that their families would be harmed, and/or sexually assaulted. Many Americans are against this “enhanced” interrogation, others feel it is necessary.

This article will discuss the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA's) Enhanced Interrogation Program that was created following the attacks of 9/11. This program violated not only domestic law but international law as well. First introduced will be the reasons for the initiation of the CIA’s interrogation program. Then this article will explain the “ticking time bomb” philosophical argument that validates torture. Next, It will discuss the violation of the constitutions eight amendment and the Geneva Conventions international rules that prohibit torture. Lastly, the effectiveness of the program will be analyzed to examine if the pain and infliction that the program caused were of any use to prevent imminent terror attacks.

For years after the terrible acts of 9/11 the United States Government used many different tactics to acquire information about Osama bin Laden and the terrorist group known as Al Qaeda, who was involved with them, and what they were planning next. The way the government, the CIA specifically, tried and succeeded in torturing its detainees was astounding and sometimes stomach churning as shown in the movie, Zero Dark Thirty, and it’s no wonder that President Obama reformed the laws and regulations that President George W. Bush installed and allowed the CIA to do. The second item about torture for military use was the reliability of the techniques and how often and how much information was actually acquired from

Countless of the harsh techniques the CIA was depicted of frequently using were merely bluffs to get information out of a detainee more easily without physical harm (Rodriguez, Jose A.). Furthermore, 30 is the longest amount of days the CIA will subject a detainee to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT), and it doesn’t usually reach that long (Rodriguez, Jose A.). Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was charged for terrorism on 9/11, and has been portrayed by media and various articles as a victim of the CIA’s “ineffective” and “immoral” interrogation (Rodriguez, Jose A.). Media put great emphasis on the fact that Mohammed was waterboarded, and made it seem like waterboarding is a rampant and common practice by the CIA. Numerous political cartoons, like the one above, specifically show waterboarding as a form of torture because of how much emphasis it has been getting as cruel and completely inequitable for the CIA to repeatedly perform on its detainees. Mohammed was waterboarded 5 times, but media twisted it around as being much worse, and him being waterboarded multiple times more than this number. There are those who say the number doesn’t matter because waterboarding is cruel in general, and should never be done. However, tens of

After the events of September 11, 2001, the United States had a unique dilemma. America was engaged in what would be called a “War on Terror”. This new conflict was unlike any in American history. Previously, in the context of war the United States had always fought a nation or group that had defined boundaries as to where they resided. This new conflict went away from these rules of the past. Terrorist groups were not bound to a region, but were instead united by an ideal. September 11 marked the first time in which terrorism would rise to the forefront of the nation’s agenda. This emergent wave of conflict required a different strategy than the those of the past because of the unorthodox nature of the opponent. One of the major innovations fostered by the “War on Terror” was the expansion of torture. The dramatic rise in terrorism sparked the unethical advancement of interrogation techniques in order to more effectively acquire information. The emergence of the “War on Terror” required government officials acquire intelligence in a new way thus spawning the emergence of “enhanced interrogation” methods, however, the morality of these techniques would come into question as they were revealed to the public.