Torture is wrong legally, morally, and rationally. By legally, I mean that the United States government is not following due process with the law OR rules of war established in the Geneva Convention. One does not generally see countries doing this. It just fuels the idea of Americans feeling superior. Morally, most people would agree that torture is correct. Often, this is overlooked due to the fact that people claim terrorists should not be treated as human beings, but as thugs. We can see this by the look on Douglass Freeman’s face as he witnesses the torture. Rationally, torture does not work. The article titled “Outsourcing Torture” includes a section on it. We can even see it in “Rendition” by the fact that Jeremy El-Ibrahimi just listed names from a soccer team. Torture goes against the fourth, fifth, and eighth amendments to the Constitution. The fourth, against illegal search and seizure, is broken simply by them stripping the suspected terrorist of his clothes. The fifth, due process, is obviously broken by the fact that they are punishing suspect terrorists without due process. The eight amendment, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, is broken simply by the fact that what the torturers are doing in quite cruel and unusual. One of my questions regarding torture was how did it come about. Admittedly by one of the men who instated it, Michael Scheuer, it was created out of desperation. The government simply did not know what to do with the terrorism problem. I try not to directly crucify those who established the program because I can not think of another way to fight terrorists. When a nation is at war against ideas, such as religious terrorism, the rules of war might not always apply, especially in the case of the enemy using tactics that ignore the rules of war, as well. For example, how do we stop suicide bombers if they believe that they well be martyred? The threat of death does not stop them. Neither does shooting the terrorist while he is strapped with a bomb because of the dead man trigger where the bomb deploys when the grip is lost.
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Stephen, I agree very much with a lot of what you said. When you said ”I try not to directly crucify those who established the program because I can not think of another way to fight terrorists. When a nation is at war against ideas, such as religious terrorism, the rules of war might not always apply, especially in the case of the enemy using tactics that ignore the rules of war, as well”, I completely agreed. It is easy to be angry at our government for torturing people, but it’s not easy to put ourselves in their shoes. I would have no idea where to start if I was tasked with stopping terrorism. Admittedly, I can see how they could turn to torture out of desperation. The amount of pressure they are under is unbelievable, they are responsible for the lives of a whole nation. And you’re right, the rules of war do not apply when they are killing thousands of our civilians on our land.
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