Compaire and Contrast of Torture

Torture At some point everyone has heard of torture. It could have been in a movie or on the news, but they have heard of it. In this day and age, people would like to have believed it was all behind us in the past. Then 9/11 happened, everyone’s lives were changed with one simple act of cruelty. Before 9/11 hit the U.S. in a wave of pain, panic, and anger, our viewpoints on torture would probably have been less likely that it should be allowed. The decision to torture people who are suspected of being part of terrorist groups has always been decided by the government, for the simple reason that it is required to keep us safe from harm. Some people believe that torture is cruel, unsightly and just inhumane. On the other hand there are people who see it the same way but also believe it could be necessary in extreme circumstances. We’re going to look at two different points of torture: When it is acceptable and when it is not acceptable. Let’s start off by asking the question Alan Dershowitz placed in his published op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times on November 8, 2001; “Consider a situation in which a kidnapped child had been buried in a box with two hours of oxygen. The kidnapper refused to disclose its location.” He then asks “Should we not consider torture in that situation?” Dershowitz puts together a very harsh question about something that realistically could actually happen to any one of us at some point in our life. To the family of this child, the answer would be clear. On the other hand, the interrogator might see that path as too harsh to follow. This is why the government needs to be the ones who decide hard choices like these. When times that require the use of torture come to light, the media tends to give life to an already harsh experience. If a soldier needs to find out where his fellow soldiers were taken, there are ways to get this information out of the detainee. To some, the quickest way to do so is to bring the harshest aspects the