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