Waterboarding In Guantanamo Bay Summary

In the wake of 9/11, waterboarding was a widely used technique to encourage suspected terrorists with suspected ties to Osama Bin Laden to reveal information about Al-Qaeda. While the practice of waterboarding is now banned by the United States, it was widely practiced during the Bush administration. The movie Zero Dark Thirty depicts waterboarding as a critical torture technique that led to the name of Osama Bin Laden’s personal courier and ultimately the death of Osama Bin Laden (Bigelow, 2012). This paper will seek to determine if the action of waterboarding suspects in order to locate Osama Bin Laden was ethically justifiable.

Should the USA and its allies use waterboarding in its interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists? Why or why not?

In the beginning of the 21st century, or the early 2000’s, Guantanamo Bay was used to house suspected terrorists that were captured by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The detainment of such prisoners aroused suspicions around the world regarding the constitutionality of the treatment of these prisoners. This was just the beginning of many allegations against the US on the subject.

Mohamed al-Kahtani was a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who endured numerous disgusting and truly horrifying acts of torture. Being seduced by prostitutes and female officers, told to act like a dog and forced to crawl on his hands and feet while barking, and forced to urinate himself are just a few examples of the type of life prisoner’s at Guantanamo Bay are living. They are held in solitary confinement, while all day and night their lights in the rooms are kept on. Each day prisoner’s are tortured. Whether it is psychical or emotional torture, it is occurring all round the camp. Prisoner’s being tied down and forced to listen to extremely loud rock music for and extended period of time is one of the tactics used

Police interrogation is a technique that police have used to gather information from anyone involved with a crime for hundreds of years. Police interrogations can last a few minutes to several hours. The police have a right to continue questioning the suspect until they ask for a lawyer (Kassin, 2013). The suspects’ call for a lawyer is a right under the Miranda Rights. In the process of interrogation, the police are not allowed to use cruel or any unusual methods to collect information, the law agents are trained with techniques to get the suspects to answer all the questions. However, this is not usually the case because sometimes the police go overboard in getting the suspects to answer their questions. This interrogation in some cases has led to false confessions leading to the wrong charging of the suspects. An approximate of one out of four confessions includes false confessions (Redlich, 2009). The false confessions made by suspects beg the question on how the police influence false confessions. This research will discuss the various techniques used by the police in interrogating suspects and how they misuse the systems to influence false confessions.

Means of torture have been used around the world for a number of years. At one point in time it had been terminated in the United States; however, after the events of September 11, 2001, it has come back as an acceptable way to acquire information from terrorists.

The majority of Americans think torture is vial but necessary which makes sense because torture is an awful breach of a humans rights but the moment that person does something that constitutes torture he has given up his human rights he is no longer a human in the eyes of many. When speaking of torture this means enhanced interrogation techniques. “57% of americans think waterboarding and other interrogation techniques practiced by the CIA “Provided reliable information that helps prevent terrorist attacks” either “often” or “sometimes”. Just 8% say it “Never” provides quality info in a recent CBS Poll.” (Aaron Blake Par. 6). So let's dive into this stat 57% the majority believe that torture is reliable and provides good information that prevented impending terror attacks and only 8% say it doesn't work at all and never provides good info that leaves a massive 35% of people who are undecided on the topic of if torture provides good info. This paper intends to help educate that 35% and maybe show that 8% different insights on this topic.

In the article “The Case for Torture” Michael Levin presents an argument for the usage of non-traditional interrogation methods such as physical torture in order to prevent “future evils”1. His approach paints a vivid scenario of how the use of human torture can be used to gain information that may prevent future tragedies and possibly save lives. Though written in 1982, Levin’s editorial provides a striking comparison of activates that have taken place since Sept. 11, 2001. It is the objective of this paper to present an unbiased argument against Michael Levin’s views and give a clear perceptive of how human torture is unacceptable during any state of affairs.

The treatment of the prison population in the United States and around the world has reached a significant amount of salience in the press. Part of the reason that prisons and the treatment of prisoners has gain so much attention is there are extreme cases available in which governments have gone so far as to torture inmates in hopes of gaining intelligence information generally in regards to terrorism activities; more specifically, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has received substantial amounts of press and has been a central political issue. However, beyond torture and the ethical issues inherent in the practice, there are countless of issues that are present in the treatment of a wider population of prisoners who are incarcerated for things other than national security.

Deception and coercion are permissible tools that are often used to gain information or confessions. Misrepresenting facts, exploiting suspects emotions and beliefs, and failure to inform suspects of pennant information that could possible make them less likely to confess, are all tactics used in the interrogation process (Fulero & Wrightsman, p. 262). Many argue that these strategies create an unfair atmosphere for suspects, however, I disagree. I feel that if a person is telling the truth, either the truth as they remember it to be or the truth as it really occurred, they can’t be tricked into believing or admitting something opposite. Often time people won’t confess unless they feel they have too. The purpose of interrogation is to gain information. While suspects don’t need to be abused, they don’t need to be mollycoddle either. While some tactics may challenge certain aspects of morals and ethics, the overall goal is to obtain information, thus allowing room for some forms of unethical tactics such as

Under our 8th Amendment the act of torture and cruel punishment is deemed illegal and in violation of civil liberties (Lowenthal, 2011, pg. 318). In addition, according to the international Geneva Convention, “torture and humiliating treatment” are prohibited on detainees (Lowenthal, 2011, pg. 318). However, we see once again the exception to this rule argument as discussed earlier. We see the “war and peace” argument proposed by Lowenthal in which the action is justified due to the circumstances in which the act took place (Lowenthal, 2011, pg. 308). For example, during the cold war period the United States and Soviet Union found themselves engaging in attacks on each other, that under peaceful periods, would be deemed unacceptable and immoral (Lowenthal, 2011, pg. 308). However due to the circumstances of the cold war period these controversial issues were overlooked for the security of the country (Lowenthal, 2011, pg. 318). The similar argument was made, that the War on Terror occurred during the Afghanistan war (PBS, 2004). During this period, there was an urgency from the Bush administration to collect intelligence to prevent any future 9/11 attacks (PBS, 2004) even if this meant torture. The act of detaining suspects and torturing them to collectintelligence seemed important at the

Human rights are universal and inalienable. It is so important that the rights of every individual on this planet are upheld that human rights abuses are the focus of 2015’s Amnesty International Student Conference. Today, we’re going to explore an abuse of human rights that occurred in a nation that prides itself on its freedom. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is a detainment facility located at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the debilitating attacks against the US on September 11th 2001, US congress passed the “Authorization for Use of Military Force” a bill that allowed then US President George W. Bush to use any essential, suitable force against the parties responsible for the attacks. Subsequent military action in Afghanistan led the US to

Unlike Television shows where attention is mostly concentrated on confessions, Carter's data highlights the fact that less than 5% of her 150 samples (taken over three years) include any form of a confession showing that despite the police officer's emphasis that the interview is source of confession it is rare to actually obtain one. Thus, rather than treating confession as the primary goal of the interview whuch puts the rights of the suspect at risk, it should be an open-ended session where the goal is to acquire evidence to bolster the case and not to presume guilt.

Imagine Sergeant John Hopkins of the Ontario Provincial Police has just called you in for an interrogation. Knowing that you did not commit a crime, you enter the isolated and boring interrogation room. Now stuck in a room being completely bombarded by questions and accusations, thinking that hopefully someone could see what was happening to you inside this room. They keep you their for six hours, tired both physically and mentally exhausted. All you can think of, to get out of this situation, is to confess to them what they want to hear. Suddenly, you confess to a murder charge. This scenario has happened several times in police interrogation rooms, to many innocent individuals. Thankfully, with the introduction of psychology working with law many changes have occurred to protect people from this type of confession. By comparing multiple psychological journals to a current article about a murder trial. The focus will be on the tactics being used in to combat false confessions in an interrogation.

“Because of pressure from peers and family members who might be present on the scene, it is important to remove the suspect from familiar surroundings, take him or her to a location with a more sterile and less threatening atmosphere” (Lyman, 1993). If an investigator selects an inappropriate area to conduct the interrogation, the suspect may be pressured into responses or statements that are not true. For example, if a suspect is questioned in an environment where family is present, they might be inclined to give deceptive responses in order to hide the truth from their family. If a suspect is questioned in an intimidating environment, they might get pressured into a false confession if they feel that no matter what they say the investigators already have the evidence required for a conviction.