Torture Terrorism Andrew Filala Summary

Applebaum's second argument for eliminating the torture policy is that it constantly enables the enemy to build tolerance for the torture. Applebaum uses the example of “radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.” This example clearly illustrates the fault within the misconception that torture is ultimately effective. There can also be unnoticed and lasting consequences to torture, that in turn, affect more than the individual country. The global stigma that is labeled upon any country that participates in or allows the torture of wartime prisoners is remarkably important. The public and self image that the respective country acquires, affects

In the article The Case For Torture by Michael Levan his emotional tone and word choice enforces the importance of the issue of torturing terrorists. Michael Levin uses imaginary highly unlikely scenarios to get into the minds of his readers. For example in paragraph 6 he tells readers to imagine that a terrorist group kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital. Then he asked four mothers of newborn babies if they approved of torturing the kidnappers in order to get their child back. This method gets into readers heads.

Imagine awaking in the morning, going downstairs and preparing the morning meal. While enjoying the sunshine through the kitchen window along with a chai tea latte, the news on the television suddenly changes from the mundane to chaotic confusion, disaster has struck! The implausible has just happened and the nation is in chaos. This disaster could happen at any moment and at any point across the globe. If the only method of prevention to this traumatic event is by the skilled technique of information extraction known as torture, would it not be the government’s obligation to the people to ensure this method of prevention was exercised? When considering the threat from extremists, the United States government must allow for the use of

Torture and Democracy written by Darius M. Rejali, delves into the complexity of torture that exists and has existed throughout the world. Published in 2007 by Princeton University Press in New Jersey, the book is an excellent resource for not just educators but, students and individuals interested in political science alike. Torture and Democracy, ISBN: 978-0-691-14333-0, is priced at $48.43 on Amazon.com for a paperback edition. The book has 849 pages that include appendixes in the latter section for readers to review references, notes, index, and other pertinent information that may have needed further explanation throughout the text. Darius Rejali is an accredited professor of political science at Reed College located in Oregon (Rejali 2007). Through his exquisite work and evaluation of torture records, Rejali is recognized as an expert on modern torture internationally (Rejali 2007). In Torture and Democracy, Rejali develops his thesis that torture in democratic states are prevalent even though it seems nonexistent. He argues that through techniques that are performed in such a way that leaves no marks on the

A plane just crashed into one of the World Trade Centers; a few minutes later a second plane hits the other tower. What happened to all of the other planned attacks on that very day and the days that followed? A special sect of law enforcement called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prides itself with quickly tracking down some of the terrorists that were involved in the attacks and effectively questioning them using various interrogation tactics, one of which is torture. The CIA’s approach to torture after 9/11 using techniques such as water boarding has proven to save lives and prevent future tragedies in spite of common controversy. In times of crisis, water boarding acquires the essential lifesaving information in time sensitive

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).

In a world where we allow torture as a tactic to extract information from supposed terrorists, we could potentially save lives of thousands of people. In a hypothetical situation where there is a terrorist group who have planted a bomb in a densely populated area and we capture one of the members of the group, do we not have an obligation to get the information in any means necessary? Should we not torture one terroristic individual to save the thousands of lives of innocent American civilians? Some people would argue that we shouldn’t for many reasons, including that torture doesn’t always produce information, let alone correct information. They may argue that innocent people could be tortured, and that we wouldn’t know if

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

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

In the article “Is Terrorism Distinctively Wrong?”, Lionel K. McPherson criticizes the dominant view that terrorism is absolutely and unconditionally wrong. He argues terrorism is not distinctively wrong compared to conventional war. However, I claim that terrorism is necessarily wrong.

In the News Week article from 1982 Michael Levin an American philosopher and university professor, presents his premises and his conclusion to why he personally believes that torture is morally permissible. In addition Levin’s expects others to understand why such thing as torture is a permissible act that everyone should incorporate as a morally acceptable act. To commence, Levin presents his topic by presenting the usual though that torture may seem barbaric; however, he then diverts to his issue, in which he personally states his believe in the quote “There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory.” Then, Levin moves on to explain his reasons for why he believes in such moral claim. For

With the poorly supported claim that “torture is [justifiable] only to save lives,” Levin presents weakly supported cases that appeal to the reader’s sense of emotion where torture might be valid. In the first scenario, he describes a terrorist threatening an overpopulated city with an atomic bomb; the second, a terrorist who has kidnapped a mother’s baby.

In “The Case for Torture,” Michael Levin presents logical fallacies that originate at the authors desire to relate the importance of his message. Though his specific argument is a very plausible solution to a taboo problem, the manner in which he presents it has some fallacies that cause it to be unsupported

In this essay I will be answering the question 'do the ends justify the means in the case of terrorism?' In other words, does the final outcome justify the way the final outcome was reached? For example, if a man stole bread from a shop in order to feed his family did he do the right thing?However, today we are going to talk about a very important topic that has been debated for decades: Terrorism. Also because the benefit come at the cost of a great amount of death and destruction of the infrastructure. Terrorism is when a person or a certain group of people attack non-combat targets for religious, political and ideological reasons. I will be arguing in the case of terrorism, the end does not justify the means.

A personal reflection on the meaning of terrorism and the assumptions made regarding it reveal, having viewed the film ‘Mumbai Massacre’, a rudimentary view on the horrors inflicted upon victims and the malice which incited such acts of violence. Where media feeds the public information on all matters regarding violence the ordinary person, such as myself, I fear to have become increasingly detached from the pain and hatred so often reported within the news. Though compassion is held toward the victims I found myself disassociating the horrors and immorality of the event from the emotional pain that victims must endure. In addition, it appears to have become lost on me the sophistication of terror attacks during stages of planning, preparation and execution whereas I had become accustomed to attributing terrorist acts to a radicalised individual experiencing a violent surge of anger and thus engaging in a senseless acts of terror. Instead, the film revealed to (or perhaps reminded) me of the lengths radical organisation will go to execute such horrors. Perhaps the most prevalent tool in this carefully executed plan was the effective use of modern technology severely enabling the multi-faceted attack. From a different perspective, I understood the same tools and motivations held by the terrorist to execute their crimes were vital to the victims in ensuring their survival, whether that is, amongst other things, religious beliefs or technology. The film has revealed number of personal preconceived ideas regarding terrorist acts and associated feelings that the following writing shall address.