Sullivan The Abolition Of Torture In America Summary

Torture Devours America In “the Abolition of Torture,” Sullivan argues that we have to ban torture in order to save America. Sullivan insists that we halt abuses on prisoners and terrorists, antithesizing his view with Krauthammer’s for most of the part in the essay. Torture is merely a brutal act of destroying a human being, a completely deplorable execution. And if America observed its favor in this vile act, there would be no more America. To start with, Sullivan says it is absurd that the Bush administration, in the name of military necessity, had permitted aggressive abuse of enemy soldiers. And the abuses in Iraq War resulted in murders of innocent captives. Before discussing the permission of torture, however, we have a severe
problem failing to argue: we only swear that torture is morally wrong, before explaining why it has to deal with morality. And Sullivan clarifies it is morally wrong because torture and freedom perfectly counter each other. A human being owns the right to protect his or her body.
Whereas U.S. Constitution exists in order to protect one’s rights, torture becomes merely against the law. If one is forced to be physically harmed, then he or she is defended by the Constitution. Human beings have “inescapable frailty” regarding bodily needs. However, torture hinders people’s autonomy, nudging them in the “inescapable frailty.” People lose their control, then; if one has lost his control over his body or mind, his state becomes “subhuman.” The Western Freedom was based on the duty to save a victim’s soul. The victim’s body would be damaged, but a lesson was always learned. But today, people are losing their souls as well as bodies. A notion has suddenly been established that in a few cases, we can accept inhumane treatments on whom Krauthammer call are “so depraved” that they deserve those treatments. Krauthammer says the depraved are so subhuman to be categorized as monsters. But Sullivan says monsters are still humans, if they have murdered numberless innocent civilians. Humans are responsible for what they have done, a fact which is not applied to animals. Then, humans are not
monsters. Moreover, Krauthammer’s excuses are simple hypotheses that rarely happen in the real world. Krauthammer has put three extraordinary events into one scenario and gives a pathetic shot to convince people. If the scenario became a true story, then Sullivan would concede the legalization of torture; the scenario has a chance of about 0.01% to become true, though. Besides, Krauthammer has not recognized how risky the accessibility of torture will be.
Even if abuse were fit in only particular circumstances, torture would be a common scene, because it tends to proliferate. If one abuses another, others will learn by seeing them, and exercise torture. Then, the only means to control torture will be declaring torture to be illegal. Another point does Sullivan oppose Krauthammer’s idea. Krauthammer claims that torture brings about untrustworthy information. When a captive gets tired of being tortured, to survive, he will spit any words whether they are true or not. Then, such information becomes an option. Sullivan criticizes Krauthammer’s attitude toward this problem, because people torture a person to be classified as subhuman and still get nothing tangible or accurate. After correcting Krauthammer’s perspective, Sullivan provides us a solution. If we look forward to other techniques of extracting information than torture, a vast number of them are awaiting. But, before keeping our eyes on the techniques, we have to give up on our tyrannical behaviors favoring torture. If we remove totalitarian aspects on our faces, we can save America, preserving its fundamental values. However, if we do not completely wipe that violent speck, America will succumb to
self-destruction.