Is Torture Good Or Bad

9/11, the Madrid train Bombings, New Delhi bombing, the London bombing and even the lindt café siege, what do they all have in common… They were acts of terrorism. What is terrorism? Terrorism is defined as the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims, but how does the media portray terrorism? The media portrays terrorism as bad people doing bad things and show those fighting it as good men doing good things but when do they talk about the “good Men” doing bad things?
Most of you would have heard of Guantanamo bay and what happens inside the barbed wire fences, a regular cell at Guantanamo Is extremely plain and has a slit for a window with flickering florescent lights with a bed too short for me to lie on. In 2002 the international committee of the red cross inspected the camp and stated "the construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture." That brings us the word torture. Torture can be used for many things and has many different forms but why use torture? The biggest reason torture is
used is the fact that it has proven affective for so many years. But when is it really acceptable to use torture on a fellow human being yet torture is happening all around the world, people might be able to stand by and let convicted terrorist be tortured but how can we stand by and allow suspected terrorist be tortured. Is it fair to make someone go through all that pain physically and mentally then say oh sorry we thought you were a terrorist, how would you feel if you were sent to prison due to inconclusive evidence just because the judicial system can’t find anyone else.
In America the use of torture is illegal on U.S soil so obviously they need somewhere to interrogate suspected and confirmed terrorist so they built Guantanamo in Cuba. Guantanamo bay is used to imprison and interrogate convicted and suspected terrorist by any means possible, the U.S army field Manuals State that “no Persons in the custody or under the control of the Department of defence, Shall be subject to torture.” Yet torture is used to extract important information from detainees of Guantanamo, every day.
Let’s move back to torture. There are two types of torture, Physical and psychological, each type has a variety of different methods. Some of these methods are extremely gruesome others seem to be more sedated in their level of mutilation, I strongly discourage looking into these methods. In the U.S Army field manuals these specific techniques are prohibited in the intelligence collection manual; Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner, Hooding, that is, placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes, Applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain, Waterboarding, Using military working dogs, Inducing hypothermia or heat injury, Conducting mock executions, Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care.
The main forms of torture used by the U.S military are Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner, placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes, Applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain, Waterboarding, Using military working dogs, Inducing hypothermia or heat injury, Conducting mock executions, Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care. This is a blatant hypocrisy which is being over looked by the United States defence department and in extension the United States government.
One of the forms of torture I mentioned is a mixture of Physical and psychological torture it is known to cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to the lungs and brain damage.
This form of torture is waterboarding. It has been widely reported that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was using waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners, Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, are, in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism, foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. This means that they the CIA are keeping people detained and putting them through their own “justice system” even though they have the right to be tried in front of a jury of their
peers.