Torture is considered to be any immoral act of violence that causes physical or mental harm. With that being said it would be morally unjust to torture suspected terrorists for information. Torturing comes with a fifty fifty chance, either it can be ineffective or effective, however for the most part it almost seldomly ever works. Since the person is trying to escape the pain they are enduring they might say anything just to stop the situation from prolonging. Who’s to say that the information they are giving is correct, and who is to say that it is false. The article supports the fact that torture does not work. “It may be a means of extracting information, but it is also a means of extracting junk information. To put it briefly, even the …show more content…
When torturing the person is treated as a thing rather than a human being. Regardless the circumstances, torture is never the way to go. It violates individuals rights and dignity. There are plenty of other better ways to obtain information from suspected terrorists that is less tragic. People can be tortured for little to no apparent reason at all. Some individuals are brought up at an early age to believe that terrorist methods are correct and that they should fight for what they love. Torturing suspected terrorist means that you are taking an unnecessary chance in torturing the wrong person. New techniques must be established. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that cruel and unusual punishments should not be allowed. Torture is an act of violence that requires the use of many cruel and unusual punishments. When torturing no lessons are learned, no modesty gained and no moral principles are …show more content…
Torture has become a training used to inflict severe agony in the victim as a method for discipline, retaliation, savagery towards heretics or to get a plea. It is disallowed everywhere throughout the world by law and it violates human rights, at the end of the day torturing is viewed as inadmissible and brutal. This represents a problem in our cutting edge society because in extraordinary cases where a confession could spare many lives and the best way to obtain it is by torturing the culprit, is viewed as a violation of the human rights. Another theory is that torture is ethically wrong and does not adhere to the lessons our parents taught us as children. Also, it is hard to determine this dilemma since it influences us in plenty of ways. It is left to people in general to decide whether it is the correct thing to do in life or death circumstances. All through history, torture has been available since the second century however it was solely used on slaves until then. For the most part, it has been connected as a method for punishment towards those who committed wrongdoings, during the medieval times, and exceptionally heretics and witches during the investigation. Beginning with the Catholic Church, the inquisition maybe the most notable bit of history involving torture as a technique for detainment and interrogation. In the modern, cutting edge world things still have not changed, torture is steady being practiced, perhaps with similar
Torture is something that is known as wrong internationally. Torture is “deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting on the orders of authority, to force a person to yield information, to confess, or any other reason” (World Medical Association, 1975, pg.1). There is a general consensus that there is a right to be free from any kind of torture as it can be found in many different human rights treaties around the world. The treaties show that all of the thoughts about torture are pointing away from the right to torture someone no matter what the case
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 coercion and torturing captured terrorist is needed to protect national security in the war against terrorism. There are numerous justifications why the coercion or torture of terrorist is normally a lesser evil than the preventable mass murder of innocent victims (Slater, Summer 2006).
There are different laws over all countries that control by every government in the world. For those who is a criminal or a prisoner, their country’s government has different laws of punishment to punish them. Torture is one of them. The function of torture is to force someone to say something and as a punishment. Torture is unacceptable which I disagree on which it is an action of inhumanly.
The War on Terror has produced several different viewpoints on the utilization of torture and its effectiveness as a means to elicit information. A main argument has been supplied that torture is ineffective in its purpose to gather information from the victim. The usefulness of torture has been questioned because prisoners might use false information to elude their torturers, which has occurred in previous cases of torture. It has also been supposed that torture is necessary in order to use the information to save many lives. Torture has been compared to civil disobedience. In addition, the argument has been raised that torture is immoral and inhumane. Lastly, Some say that the acts are not even regarded as torture.
The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution says, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The fundamental idea of torture is to inflict mental or physical pain onto a suspect to coerce them into revealing information we desire. This tactic is illegal because it violates the Constitution, and in addition, it violates international agreements that our nation has committed itself to. The general provisions of the Geneva Conference of 1949 prevent the use of torture in warfare; the document specifically outlaws “Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating or degrading treatment…” By violating these laws, particularly the Constitution, our nation
Is torture justified? Does it make us feel safer? Most Americans would say that it is immoral to torture any human being for any reason. There are a few people left who would disagree with that and say that some deserve to be tortured in order to obtain information that could potentially save the lives of hundreds or thousands.
According to the course text, the creation of the torture warrant can only be imposed by a judge in cases where there is need for information in order to save lives and if there is probable cause that the criminal has information and is not willing to reveal the information to law enforcement (Siegel, 2015). If I was a government agent as was holding a prisoner that has been arrest for being a suspect terrorist and the bomb was about to go off in two hours, then I would definitely use torture. The reason I would use torture is because despite times calls for despite measure sometimes. In addition, it is normal for law enforcement to put pressure on suspects to get information (Siegel, 2015).Therefore, I would do what I had to do to ensure
Torture has long been a controversial issue in the battle against terrorism. Especially, the catastrophic incident of September 11, 2001 has once again brought the issue into debate, and this time with more rage than ever before. Even until today, the debate over should we or should we not use torture interrogation to obtain information from terrorists has never died down. Many questions were brought up: Does the method go against the law of human rights? Does it help prevent more terrorist attacks? Should it be made visible by law? It is undeniable that the use of torture interrogation surely brings up a lot of problems as well as criticism. One of the biggest problems is that if torture is effective at all. There are
Torture falls under the category of cruel and unusual punishment, however circumstance can sway the attitude towards the use of torture. The most prevalent example in society, as well as the one used in the article “The Torture Debate” by Philip Rumney and Martin O’Boyle is terrorism. Based on the information presented in the article I agree that a legalized torture system should be developed under specific
Is there a case for torture? Throughout the world for many centuries torture has been a highly debated and very controversial topic. It all started in Greece when slaves would get tortured to collect evidence for trials, crimes against the state, and treason. Not long after, the Roman Catholic Church and the Nazis’ began to use torture as well. During this time witnesses noticed what was going on and did not agree with it but had no way of stopping it. All across the world, a group of nations came together to make an agreement in opposition to torture. Not all nations were agreeing to not allow torture in their country, yet the majority of countries did agree. Even today it is hard to make the whole world agree to not doing something but making these agreements allow individual countries to comprise a support system. Many public figures and educators have made their opinion public but it has not yet evoked a change in the agreements originally set by the Geneva Convention. Torture is still today a very controversial topic with compelling arguments for both sides of whether to torture or to not.
Not only can torture do cruel things to the person receiving the affliction, but it can also affect the torturer. When a person gives torture, it damages the humanity of them, which means they will never be the same person again. When torture is used, the victim is treated as a “thing” rather than a person. The receiver is basically dehumanized to achieve the desires of the torturer. Although torture can be used to discover new information, it does not always work that way. Torture can cause inaccurate information to be provided due to the want for the torture to be finished with. In some cases, torture is not the
Torture methods administered during the medieval times were much more malicious than today’s punishments. In the United States, torturing individuals is forbidden regardless of the circumstance. Using torture as a punishment has been outlawed by the U.S. Supreme court since the 1890’s, and is now included in the Eight amendment.
Most violent offenders are not subjected to these techniques. However, it has been reported that the use of these techniques was almost commonplace in the intelligence community following the September 11 attacks. In civil proceedings, the Fifth (federal) and Fourteenth (state) Amendments address the use of these techniques. While torture is not explicitly discussed, the amendments do, among other things, provide protection against self-incrimination to include situations that are inherently coercive. Furthermore, military tribunals are more specific and require less interpretation. Rule 304 of the Manual for Military Commissions (2010) clearly states, “No statement, obtained by the use of torture, or by cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment…shall be admissible in a trial by military commission...” (pp. III-8). With this in mind, if terrorists are exposed to these harsh techniques, any information obtained would not be admissible in court due, not only to the coercive techniques used, but the inherent unreliability of the information obtained. The overarching point is less about the use of harsh interrogation techniques as it is about the effects of immoral or unethical treatment in a democratic justice system. In other words, if we don’t treat terrorists the same, they become harder to successfully prosecute. Timothy McVeigh and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are
One reason for the justification for the prohibition is that torture can have serious long-term health issue far after the ordeal has passed. Physical torture is one thing but psychological torture is something that can never be forgotten. Torture can affect the brain, affecting people’s thinking capabilities, cause PTSD, depression, and anxiety, these psychological traumas could turn into physical pain and manifest as diseases. Another major reason for the prohibition is that it is a violation of everyone’s human rights. When one is tortured they have endured one of the most heinous things one individual can do to another human being. Torture strips individuals of their dignity and humanity and because of it, individuals are unable to fully