"Throughout My Detainment In The Solitary Cells, There

While the law itself condemns use of torture for any purpose, torture becomes necessary to be used in particular critical instances. According to Miles, the United States senate allowed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on a number of cases and detainees. The human rights should be considered first in any event whether in interrogation or any other course of action1. The policy makers have found themselves between hard and difficult decisions to make on the techniques for obtaining vital information from terrorists who are trained heavily on resisting from giving information when caught in the wrong side of the law.

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.

“Torture and abusive interrogation tactics are illegal under both U.S. law and international law. Torture is prohibited under federal law, as are lesser forms of detainee abuse such as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.” (Human Rights First)

The Abu Ghraib torture scandal left a large blemish on the occupation of Iraq and George Bush’s War on terror. As stories of the torture happening in the Abu Ghraib prison began circulating, American citizens had trouble comprehending the acts of evil their soldiers had committed on Iraqis. Some began to see a correlation between Abu Ghraib and the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Though the guards in both situations were brutal to their captives, distinct differences lay in the severity of their actions. Abu Ghraib’s guards were much more vicious to their captives, and this can be attributed to the prejudices the guards felt against their captors, the environment, and the lack of training, compounded with a lack of accountability in the leadership.

Bloche talks about how advanced interrogation and torture techniques have emerged to adapt to specific situations; and that many people believe that torture doesn’t help anything because people will say anything to get out of such tortures (Bloche 115). The article states that nothing can force someone to tell the truth; however, through harsh methods of abuse, you can instill a sense of hopelessness in the person being interrogated (Bloche

Abu Ghraib Prison was a cruel and inhumane form of torture that occurred during the famous era of Saddam Hussein. Twenty miles west of Baghdad, Abu Ghraib stood as the most infamous prisons the world has ever seen. There was reported weekly executions, daily torture and barbarous living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women were crammed into Abu Ghraib at once. During the war against Iraq, The United States Army took over the prison and committed extenuous human rights violations against the prisoners. Detainees were raped, beaten, stripped, deprived of food and sleep, hung by their wrists and threatened with death all under American control. A famous picture taken at Abu Ghraib depicts an Iraqi standing on a box, in a scarecrow-like

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques have their situational uses. One major claim is the lauded Ticking Time Bomb scenario in which the case is laid out in a needs of the many versus the needs of the one format. The premise as given by Bob Brecher is thus, “Suppose there is good reason to think that someone has planted a bomb in a public place. And suppose there is good reason to think that it is going to go off in the next two hours or so, and that it is going to kill and maim dozens of people, maybe hundreds. The question is all too real. Imagine, to bring the example closer to home, that the police or the secret services had known that bombs were shortly to go off somewhere in Bali, Madrid, Lonon or Sharm-el-Sheikh in the attacks of 2004 and 2005. But no one knows where the bomb is – except one person, who is already in custody. Naturally they have no intention of revealing where the bomb is. Maybe they have planted it themselves; maybe not. Either way, they remain silent. Should they be tortured to force them to reveal where the bomb is?”(Torture and the Ticking Bomb 1). In this scenario there is substantial moral justification for torture. Consider this, law enforcement believes that torturing the target will save

The torture has been used as one of the ways to obtain decisive information from people. The military and intelligence agency paid more attention to psychiatric research than the medical profession. They thought that it would be very effective if they can use psychological factors for interrogation. This technique was secretly developed by the intelligence agencies such as CIA and KGB, but little was known about it.

Another player in this global debate of enhanced interrogation is the United Nations itself. In May of 2005, the UN issued an 11 page panel report on the adhearance of the United States to the anti-torture treaty. In the report the UN said that the United States should stop the process of enhanced interrogation saying that it was “nothing more than torture”. The US should stop its interrogations of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan by military and civilian staff and prosecute any staff found to have used any of the techniques specific to the enhanced interrogation. The UN report stopped short of admonishing the United States as the US “has a very good record on human rights” , (19 May 2006) Torture was banned by the UN in 1948, in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which not only is

The prison gained international notoriety after Amnesty International published reports of abuses such as rape, murder and sodomy. According to an article written by, The Newyorker called, Chain of command, Soldiers such as, Charles Graner and Lynndie England, were sentenced to years in prison. They were charged for a series of human rights violations such as, aggravated assault and battery, and malnutrition. It is said that they committed more violations, but it can’t be proven. In the Abu Ghraib prison, detainees were constantly beaten and humiliated, they were stripped naked and put on leashes forced to crawl around like a dog for hours at a

However not all the guards abused the power given to them, some were able to resist the urge and were considerate of the prisoner’s conditions. In May of 2004 photographic evidence of illegal acts conducted by American Military Police at the Abu Ghraib prison in Afghanistan. The Afghani detainees were subject to abuse by their American captors. “I was deeply distressed at the sight of such suffering, of such displays of arrogance, of such indifference to the humiliation being inflicted upon helpless prisoners” (Zimbardo). One American

The author Allen S. Keller, M.D., is the director of the Bellevue Hospital Center and belongs to the member’s advisory council on human rights. (p.558) He is well known for his advocacy on the various use of torture tactics used on Iraqi prisoners and other refuges. During a Congressional meeting Mr. Keller stated "To think that abusive methods, including the enhanced interrogation techniques [in which Keller included waterboarding], are harmless psychological ploys is contradictory to well established medical knowledge and clinical experience." (“CNN”, 2007)

To help defeat this ever growing problem, the U.S. must gain intelligence from detainees through interrogations. Interrogators must have all available sources to make a detainee tell us intelligence their withholding. Guantanamo Bay, has provided the U.S. a secure detention and interrogation facility. From this facility, we have gain invaluable tactical and strategic intelligence needed to better understand and defeat the enemy. Along with saving the lives of U.S. personnel and their allies. With the use of mechanical detection devices, and numerous studies on the detainees, interrogations could be more effective then what they are

We are aware of some of these “enhanced interrogation techniques” from various leaks and the CIA’s torture report. Some of these techniques consist of rectal feeding and rehydration which is a debatable technique itself since it is thought to be a helpful method to dehydrate detainees who refused to eat. Another technique is the confinement in a box where detainees are kept inside small boxed for long periods of time. The most commonly heard about, waterboarding: where the detainee is strapped on the board tilted down, head to the ground while the face is being covered with a cloth and water is poured down making them have a drowning sensation. Other techniques also include beating and threats to their family members and loved ones, along with

Consequently, with the restrictions enforced in the practice of interrogation technique the intelligence community must institute a practice that is not in violate of EO 13491. Since the 1971, “Stanford Prison Study” and the 2004, Abu Ghraib scandal the methods utilized on detained personnel has not been effective. This study will attempt to find a solution to understand what motivates a person (s) held captive to cooperate, deceive, or provide misinformation, short of violating EO 13491.