David Schutt
April Van Camp
ENC1101_Tuesday/Thursday
10/15/2011
The Truth behind Torture Acts of interrogation or torture towards humans has many perspectives. There are many viewpoints that people have on the circumstances in which torture is necessary or unnecessary. Torture without reason is inhumane and uncalled for. People that torture others who are innocent deserve absolutely no respect or positive recognition. Although, torture may be reasonable in situations like enemy hostage scenes or ticking-time-bomb scenarios. U.S. Senator John McCain is correct when he states that torture should never be legal. However, if there is a situation in which thousands of lives can be saved by interrogating an enemy to derive intelligence, then torture is a reasonable act to follow. Torture is horrible and cruel. The Holocaust and other tragic war events are great examples of how torture can negatively impact a human’s life. Navy veteran John McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. John McCain was tortured by the Vietnamese so he could provide them with valuable information about his flight squadron. McCain would say anything just so the interrogation would stop. “In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything his captors want to hear” (McCain 423). John McCain is stating that if you try to attain useful intelligence form your enemy by torturing them, then most of the time they will tell you what you want to hear, not what is true. The significance of this is that torture is unnecessary towards enemies because their information may lead us in the wrong direction. Torturing to acquire information is not needed, but torture to save thousands of lives is. There are only a few situations where torture is acceptable. One of which is the hostage scenario. If an enemy is holding somebody hostage, then torture shall present itself from the spectator towards the enemy. For example, when United States Navy Seal team six attacked Osama Bin Laden in May of 2011, they were presented with a hostage affiliated execution. When they killed Osama Bin Laden it was a necessary type of torture. He was a world known mass murderer, and it was appropriate to kill him. Osama Bin laden was capable of killing more citizens in the future, so torturing/killing him saved thousands of lives. “Torture in order to save an innocent person is the only situation where it is clearly justifiable” (Bagaric 417). Torture should be illegal in every other use besides what Mirko Bagaric states. Using interrogation to save thousands of lives is one hundred percent appropriate. The ticking-time-bomb scenario is another acceptable approach to torture. It is wrong for somebody to
Torture and Just War So much for diplomacy and the using of non-violence to retrieve valuable information from criminals. Our world today is much different from what it was so many hundred years ago when torture was seen as something proper and necessary that was the basis for people telling the truth or risking getting killed or seriously injured in the process. Nowadays there is so much red tape and bureaucracies that individuals have to respect before even thinking of perusing making it near…
Torture In the past several years since the tragic day of September 11th, 2001, the talk about terrorism has been nonstop. The War on Terror began and the government has expressed constant deliberation about how to ensure a similar attack will never happen again. One of the huge topics revolves around the use of torture on suspected terrorists. In 2002, the head of the CIA counterterrorist center stated, “There was a before 9/11 and an after 9/11. After 9/11 gloves come off” (Priest and Gellman)…
First Name, Last Name Essay #2 - Torture Discussion Essay Instructor, Margaret Anderson ENG-111 Torture – An Unnecessary Evil At issue are whether torture should be permissible, and what the implications of said permissibility are to foreign nations. For this discussion, “torture” is defined as a non-lethal means of extracting information from a suspected malefactor for the purpose of using that information to save innocent lives in an emergency situation, or “ticking time bomb” scenario…
Is torture ever acceptable? According to the UN Convention Against Torture, any infliction of torture1 i.e. waterboarding is banned under international law and the domestic laws of most countries in the 21st century. The point of contention is whether torture under any circumstances should be entirely prohibited. This opinion piece will be centered towards the debate regarding interrogation using torture methods and argue that torture is never acceptable from the moral and utilitarian perspectives…
ON TORTURE This paper will systematically investigate different positions taken on the moral permissibility of torture, to reveal that torture is not to be accepted or justified under any circumstance. In order to effectively address the matter, we ought to come to definitional terms with “torture”, despite the lack of unanimity and the spread of contextual usage of the term. For the scope of this paper, the term “torture” will be adopted to refer to any act by which mental or physical pain…
Medieval Torture By Bridget Crowley B5 November 2014 The following paper consists of information on Torture during the Middle Ages. This paper observes torture methods and the way it affected people in this time period. The information also includes the Public Humiliation of torture methods, physical damage to the body, and murder caused by torture. The document includes general information about Trials by ordeal, Inquisition, and Trial by jury. Finally, the paper reveals the effects of these tortuous…
Perspectives on Torture and the War on Terrorism Perspectives on Torture and the War on Terrorism Yoo defined torture as an act committed upon a person with specific intensions to cause him/her severe mental or physical pain or suffering by another person acting under the color of law, and has his custody or physical control. This pain must not be as a result of lawful sanctions. This type of definition that Yoo uses is “threatening” and is unlawful. President Obama however…
“The Case for Torture” argues that there are various reasons for allowing torture to exist in the United States of America. Levin would love to see society change its negative views on torture so that, under certain circumstances, torture would be permissible. The article starts off with a very brief description of how he believes society views the subject of torture as a negative thing. He leads on to oppose that way of thinking and provides three cases in which he believes torture must be administered…
Guantanamo Bay: Why President Obama Cannot Shut it Down. Guantanamo Bay, also, known as GITMO, is a United States naval station, that was leased out in an agreement by the US and Cuban government in 1903. It was originally a naval station that was intended for coaling and mining. However, fast forward to, 2002, GITMO became an established controversial detention camp, where international terrorists are held. The Bush administration initially offered three explanations for their decision to establish…
Can torture ever be justified? You are in a dark room with concrete walls where no sound can enter or leave. The dim lights are flickering and there are two guards standing outside. In front of you is a man tied to a chair, he has information on a plot to kill thousands or possibly millions of innocent lives. You've asked him repeatedly to tell you what he knows, but he won’t say a word. The question arises in your mind is: should you resort to using torture? Torture is considered the act of “inflicting…
