Use Of Torture

The United States Use of Torture

November 19, 2013

In the decade following the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the United States has seen a constant struggle with militant terrorist organizations. Groups including the Taliban and primarily Al-Qaeda have been part of an ongoing violent conflict in the Middle East. Throughout these struggles with terrorists, the United States have employed various methods of interrogation and intelligence gathering which have included the torturing of prisoners overseas. While this practice was and still is today widely considered to be exceedingly deplorable, it has shown some advantages, none of which justify the means. According to the United Nations Convention
Against Torture, torture is defined as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person by or at the instigation or a confession or to punish the person for an act he or s third person has committed…” (CAT 1).
The treaty was ratified in 1994. Following 9/11, the United States became more embroiled in the fight against terrorism than previously seen. Torture became a much more prominent method of gaining information than before (if at all). Led by the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States began to plan and build secret prisons or “Black Sites” where terrorist prisoners would be subjected to, “enhanced methods of interrogation.” The sites were established under an extensive law signed by President George Bush less than one week after September 11 that gave the CIA wide-ranging power to disrupt terrorist operations, with the right to kill, capture, or imprison suspected members of al-Qaeda. Here, several high ranking terrorist
leaders were held and tortured. But is torture really an effective means to gathering information? Supporters of torture methods argue that the effect on victims speaks for itself. It is believed that the victim will respond to torture because they would rather speak than suffer physical or psychological torment involved. Who would withhold information at the risk of physical harm? It is assumed to work for both security and stability reasons because people are assumed to have limited thresholds for enduring that kind of abuse. Dominantly, the model for reasoning torture is based upon the ‘ticking bomb’ thesis, which argues that if the arrested terrorist does not talk, people will die when the bomb goes off.
“The ethical framework then allows for weighing the costs and benefits of extreme methods of gaining information necessary to locate the bomb and prevent its explosion. The ticking bomb scenario portrays the looming threat as so intense as to appear unacceptable” (Hannah 624). The rallying of support through intimidating circumstance is where this idea gains its momentum. Those extreme methods are justified because they result in innocent lives being saved, which gives torture the appearance of being a last resort. Typically a last resort is messy and unorthodox but always works in the end. This gives way to two simultaneous yet contradicting positions that torture is not effective, but that torture is necessary in the end. The arguments against torture far outweigh those in support of it. Most of which surround the idea that torture is ineffective because the victim would say anything in the end to stop the abuse, regardless of whether or not it was true. In 1989 an Israeli sergeant spoke of his time in an interrogation unit of the Israeli Defense Force, when asked if the signed confessions were false he stated, “I don’t really know, I don’t speak Arabic. But believe me, they would sign anything towards the end, no matter whether they did it or not. Anything” (Blakeley 380). And even if viable information is extracted there is no solid evidence that points to torture being the only way the information would have been attained. Since January 2002, the Bush Administration has warranted the mistreatment of prisoners of the “war on terror” because the detainees are unlawful enemy combatants not guaranteed the human rights dictated in the Geneva Conventions or U.S. law. In response to the CIA’s and FBI’s concerns about its interrogation practices, the Attorney General’s Office of Legal Counsel concluded that physical pain constituting torture "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Anything below this threshold merely constitutes “cruel, inhuman or degrading kind of treatment,” which, although banned under the Convention as well, does not constitute a punishable offense. Soon thereafter, military personnel began to seek authorization for harsher interrogation techniques. Some of the extreme and abusive methods of torture include sleep deprivation, forced nudity, waterboarding, beating, burning with chemicals, etc. Physicians for Human rights states that, “Survivors of torture often suffer from a combination of physical and psychological effects. Physical effects may include scars, broken bones, muscle swelling, stiffness or atrophy, chronic pain, headaches, deafness, blindness and loss of teeth. Victims often suffer from psychological symptoms such as lack of sleep, nightmares, problems with concentration, anxiety, depression, irritability, adjustment disorders, impotence, and feelings of powerlessness, shame and guilt.” So with the United States clear violation of the Human Rights treaty, what was or is being done to stop the use of torture practiced by the United States? There are many organizations focused on ending torture methods in the military as well as bills being introduced that outlaw anything of the sort. Recently the known CIA black sites have been closed as part of a promise to end torture by the current administration. Guantanamo Bay remains active despite plans to close it. In all of this effort of debate, one question is raised: should torture be completely banned? The answer lies in the attempt to justify the use of torture for any of the functions it is intended to serve, as well as in making a decision on morality in general. As a means of securing information to prevent attacks and enhance national security the answer is no. In essence, the ends of torture can’t and won’t justify the means. In my personal opinion I find that torture is a deplorable method of information gathering in addition to it being inefficient.

Works Cited
Beehner, L.
2013. Torture, the United States, and Laws of War. [online] Available at: http://www.cfr.org/terrorism-and-the-law/torture-united-states-laws-war/p9209#p4 [Accessed: 20 Nov 2013].
Blakeley, R. 2007. Why Torture?. Review of Internaitonal Studies, 33 (3), pp. 373-394. [Accessed: 20 Nov 2013].
Hannah, M. 2006. Torture and the Ticking Bomb: The War on Terrorism as a Geographical Imagination of Power/Knowledge. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96 (3), pp. 622-640. [Accessed: 20 Nov 2013].
Moore, W. 2013. What Stops the Torture?. American Journal of Political Science, 54 (2), pp. 459-476. [Accessed: 20 Nov 2013].
Shane, S. 2013. U.S. Engaged in Torture After 9/11, Review Concludes. [online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/us-practiced-torture-after-9-11-nonpartisan- review-concludes.html?_r=0 [Accessed: 20 Nov
2013].