Essay On Torture In America

The institution of torture has been in existence for quite sometime; however, it was not always seen as an ethical question. In antiquity, the Romans employed something known as “the cat-of-nine-tails,” which was a flogging instrument with nine sharp ends. However, the use of torture was not confined to the West, the Chinese utilized “bamboo sticks to beat people.” During antiquity, torture was used as a punishment, but during the Spanish Inquisition, this notion of torture evolved to a means to extract withheld information. Today torture is unofficially used to extract information; however, it is officially illegal according to the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. Nonetheless, the issue of legality and

Levin states: “Suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island which will detonate at noon on July 4... He is caught at 10 a.m. on the fateful day, but preferring death to failure, won't disclose where the bomb is. What do we do? If we follow due process, wait for his lawyer, arraign him, millions of people will die.” What Levin is trying to convince his readers of is that once people’s lives are threatened, the normal way of doing things will take too long to and people will die. Levin does a good job at convincing his readers that when people are not in danger, they do not consider torture as a way of protecting themselves. Levin also asks if torturing terrorists saves millions of lives is there really any reason not

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.

David Figueroa Eng. 101A Professor Stern 4/20/15 Final draft In conclusion, in discussions of torture, one controversial issue has been on the use of it. On one hand, the people against torture argue that it is cruel and unusual punishment. On the other hand, those for torture argue that it should be used for the greater good. Others even maintain that under extreme circumstances, it may be admissible if it can save American lives. My own view is that no one should be subjected to cruel punishment because it is not only illegal, unreliable, ineffective, time consuming, it also has too many flaws that could potentially ruin innocent lives. The definition of torture is any act, whether physical or emotional, or maybe both, is intentionally subjected to a specific individual or a group for many reasons. Most of these reasons that torture is administered is for extracting information from an individual or just for punishing him/her for a crime that he/she has committed or is suspected of committing. The use of torture can be used to intimidate a person to give information that may be beneficial for a nation. The use of torture has been used for many centuries. The purposes of using torture have changed over the years as well as the methods in which a person is tortured. One crucial piece that has been established that separates us human beings from barbarians is the prohibition of using torture. There are many reasons why torture has been deemed a crime now in society. There are

The United States is considered one of the most powerful countries in the world. They have a well organized and trained armed forces. But, they were built with principles and moral standards. According to those rules, people could not do what they pleased all the time. The paper signed by the founding Fathers is, the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits the enforcers of the law to torture. Yet, it is still done. There is no straight statement that prohibits torture. An arguement of whether it can be legal or not is made, for the use of, retriving important information, the use of the 8th amendment and how 9/ 11 change some perspectives.

The United States citizens have been wrestling with the question of, whether their government intelligence agencies should be prohibited from using torture to gather information. According to Michael Ignatieff, this is the hardest case of what he describes as ‘lesser evil ethics’—a political ethics predicated on the idea that in emergencies leaders must choose between different evils Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, torture was viewed by most American’s as only actions that brutal dictators would employ on their citizens, to keep order within their country. However, this all changed when in May 2004, The New Yorker released photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The disturbing pictures were released on the internet showing bodies of naked Iraqis piled onto each other, others showed Iraqis being tortured and humiliated. There was a huge up roar, which caused the President at the time George W. Bush to publicly apologize, and threaten the job of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Soon after, the CIA Conformed the use of waterboarding on three Al-Qaida suspects in 2002 and 2003, which further annihilated the topic. Since these reports, torture has been in the forefront of national politics, and the public opinion has been struggling to commit on whether torture is right or wrong.

Torture has long been used by law enforcement agencies and governments to questions criminals and terrorists. It is used to coax confessions or to find out any sort of information that may lead to the arrest or capture of other criminals. Although the torturing of prisoners in the United States is strictly prohibited by the constitution, the government started using the tactic waterboarding against terrorists. Although the government says waterboarding has led to prevention on mass terrorist attacks on U.S soil, it is not accepted by all of this country’s citizens. It is believed by certain people that waterboarding is torture and others do not believe it is. It is my goal to explore why the United States deemed this

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

At some point everyone has heard of torture. It could have been in a movie or on the news, but they have heard of it. In this day and age, people would like to have believed it was all behind us in the past. Then 9/11 happened, everyone’s lives were changed with one simple act of cruelty. Before 9/11 hit the U.S. in a wave of pain, panic, and anger, our viewpoints on torture would probably have been less likely that it should be allowed. The decision to torture people who are suspected of being part of terrorist groups has always been decided by the government, for the simple reason that it is required to keep us safe from harm. Some people believe that torture is cruel, unsightly and just inhumane. On the other hand there are

Under American influence, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen contained in the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was tortured to an extent where his whole body was burned. Binyam is just one example of the claims of torture found in the Guantanamo Bay prison, otherwise known as “Gitmo”. Many of the Gitmo detainees are men who made most, if not all, Americans fear them after their attacks on September 11, 2001, but after reports of abuse, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have promised to close down the Guantanamo detention facility.

This is about a controversial topic that is very frowned upon by the public, and that is the use of torture in the united states. The cia, fbi, Guantanamo Bay , etc. For many years the U.S government have used a variety of torture methods to get information, to prove a point, etc. so many of the torture methods are said to be very inhumane and were banned and no longer allowed to be practice at all. Although some are banned a few were allowed to be practiced such as Confinement in a box, waterboarding, etc. But yet there are still many that are banned or have been banned.

the 14th to 18th centuries in Europe, torture was a very common thing of the

Although the use of torture has been around since the first century, most Americans did not debate on the controversial topic until after the Abu Ghraib incident surfaced in April 2004. The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison was a complex west of Baghdad. During the war in Iraq, US armed forces committed a number of human rights violations, including “pouring phosphorus liquid on detainees, pouring cold water on naked detainees, beating detainees” (Hersh) and committing other psychological, physical, and sexual abuses. At the Abu Ghraib prison, military officials abused detainees for several reasons or without providing a reason. Enhanced interrogation techniques are sometimes seen as necessary to extract information, punish detainees, and instill fear; however, occasionally torture is used without providing a reason. Proponents of torture insist its legitimacy in special circumstances, especially when handling international terrorists. Opponents of torture believe these human rights violations are medieval and inhumane. Torture is illegal in the United States and no United States agency can legally engage in torture abroad. No country should engage in enhanced interrogation techniques because the methods are a violation of ethical principles, a violation of international law, a form of cruel and unusual punishment, ineffective in combating terrorism, and immoral, dehumanizing acts related to a lack of moral integrity.

In this article, Andrew Sullivan, is an advocate for the abolition of torture against terrorist in the United States. During the time that this article was written, the McCain Amendment (which banned torture) was on a political limbo. What this author talks mostly about is the choice that we have to make things right, therefore ban the use of torture against terrorist. This debate takes place after Bush administration defined "torture" and permitted coercive, physical abuse of enemy combatants if "military necessity" demands it. Also after several reports found severe abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and elsewhere that has led to at least two dozen deaths during interrogation, secret torture sites in Eastern Europe and innocent detainees being murdered.

Whether it is after terror attacks, new discoveries about Guantanamo or developments in politics, the discussion around torture continues to resurface.