Torture legalization has been a controversial debate among the government officials following the incidents of 9/11. America launched a war on terrorism against Al-Qaida and other terrorist extremists in response to many different threats and attacks from those terrorist organizations. Many suspects were caught by American intelligence and many were incarcerated. However, the problem became the way US would deal with those prisoners to get the information needed to win the war. US started secretly using harsh methods to force the prisoners to talk. The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) act signed by the US after the WWII explains torture as a dehumanizing method that diverge from the respect of human rights (Chazelle). The US is believed to be among countries that put human rights first. Any attempt to legalize torture would not justify its use because torture would still be a dehumanizing act. Those who propose torture legalization do not suggest torture to be among the primary methods of interrogation, …show more content…
For the law to permit torture, the law has to be modified. However, no one can modify the rights of his neighbor. People have always equal rights under the law (Finkelstein). The purpose of a judge giving a torture warrant is not clear. Would it be to make sure the suspect does not die during interrogation? Would it be to give specific steps to follow when torturing the suspect? The law should be a tool to enforce the respect of each individual’s rights and should always be used to stand for what is right. The law should not be used to check if one’s rights were violated accordingly.
The US as a signee of the UNCAT serves as an example to other countries against torture. The US leads as an example of what is right. If the US rectifies legal torture and starts to torture its prisoners it would send a bad message to other countries and the UNCAT would have been for nothing
In the article, “The Torture Myth,” Anne Applebaum explores the controversial topic of torture practices, focused primarily in The United States. The article was published on January 12, 2005, inspired by the dramatic increase of tensions between terrorist organizations and The United States. Applebaum explores three equality titillating concepts within the article. Applebaum's questions the actual effectiveness of using torture as a means of obtaining valuable information in urgent times. Applebaum explores the ways in which she feels that the United States’ torture policy ultimately produces negative effects upon the country. Applebaum's final question is if torture is not optimally successful, why so much of society believes it works efficiently.
Rather, when torture is acceptable, and on which term should be it performed? The argument lest authorization torture his an advisor Sharde presumption that torture is currently happening and will be happening in the future hence the the. Plan of torture and. Dershowitz believes in a formal, visible, accountable, and controlled system of inflicting that would ideally leave torture as a last resort. The system would begin by granting the suspect immunity. Then suspect the be would compelled to testify; if the suspect were to refuse to exchange information, the next step would be acknowledging the possibility of torture while continuing to give the option of immunity. In a case of a suspect refusing to exchange information, even with immunity, a judicial warrant must be granted to proceed with purposely elicited
What do you consider to be cruel and unusual punishment? Most people when asked this question think of medieval torture devices, burning people alive, and hard slave labor. However, cruel and unusual punishment, which is a protected against right by the eighth amendment, stretches far beyond these cliches and is still occurring in modern society. The case Miller v. Alabama and a parallel case, Jackson v. Hobbs deals with such punishments and brings up the questions of what, in current times, is to be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Miller v. Alabama addresses with the debate that arose surrounding the mandatory sentence of life without parole for a juvenile when two boys, fourteen-year-old Evan Miller and sixteen-year-old Colby Smith,
In his essay “The Case for Torture,” printed in The Norton Reader 13th Edition, Michael Levin argues that torture is justified and necessary under extreme circumstance. He believes that if a person accepts torture to be justified under extreme cases, then the person automatically accepts torture. Levin presents weak argument and he mostly relies on hypothetical scenarios. There is not concrete evidence that torture solves problems and stop crime but rather the contrary. Under international law, torture is illegal and all the United Nation members have to abide by those rules. The use of torture does not keep people safe, but rather the opposite. Torture has a profound effect on democracy. As the use of torture becomes normal in society, the right of the citizen will suffer greatly.
To: Barrack Obama, President of the United States From: Densil Alias Date: 4/1/13 Subject: Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. Guantanamo Bay is where we detain and interrogate some of the most important and valuable prisoners. Some have come to disagree if that is such a good idea, since the detention center is not even on US lands. It is a couple miles off shore in a place, where OUR center shouldn’t be: Cuba.
of one's rights but, to torture a person is a breach of law that protection of interest is not
Because of the 9/11 terrorist, the U.S. have been able to limit the outcomes they produce by using physical and mental torture against their emotional torture they used on the Citizens. Its not the U.S. that started this battle over the use of torture, america had to protect itself from further hurt. “The suffering caused by the terrorists is the real torture (Jean-Marie Le Pen).” people argue that torture it is an inhumane act to deliberately beat a victim physically and mentally. The problem is that there are no other possible solutions to obtain information that are as effective as torture on such events other than force it out of them by using torture as their primary weapon (The Legal Prohibition). If the U.S. wants to pursue the safety of americans they have to take actions, As long as there are no bombs going off around the world, the U.S. will continue to use torture . Terrorism has become a much greater threat than before. regardless if the beating are too extreme, it is still the duty of the state to protect its citizens (Torture Is Just Means). Even if the interoges are suffering from severe torture, the U.S. is able t...
The notion that fear will make a human leak information is not a novel idea. Torture has widely been used throughout the world by many groups of people. After World War II, The Geneva Convention prohibited any nation from partaking in torture. The emergence of terrorist activity on American soil brought up the question whether torture should be advocated or prohibited from a moral standpoint. The US changed the definition of torture in order to forcibly attain potentially important information from captives. Even though the new clause suggested that many of the methods the US used were now legal, other countries still had an issue in terms of honoring the Geneva Convention and basic human rights. Advocates for torture promise that countless innocent lives can be saved from the information obtained from a single torture victim. Opponents to the advocates suggest that torture often results in misleading information. Morally, torture is not justified as it degrades humans and often leaves victims scarred for life and possibly dead.
From a moral standpoint, torture is wrong and unacceptable. Many religious people are against this act of violence because they see it as a violation of the dignity of a human being. Humans have the right to not have intentional harm upon themselves from others. The ban on torture furthermore supports this certain right. Not only does torture violate people’s rights, but they also violate the demands of justice. In the past, many of our nation’s people have been tortured and we have had a problem with it; but when it’s not you the one that is being tortured, it seems to be fine. Have you heard of the golden rule, “Treat others only as you consent to being treated in the same situation? (7)” This applies very well to this problem.
the virtue of America). How can the United States tell other leader not to torture, but do the same thing they accuse dictators of doing? The United States as the leaders of free world was not living up to its own humanitarian standards. What the Bush administration was saying and what they were doing was completely opposite. Sontag reminds us that, “we are not talking about a rare case of, ticking time bomb situation, in which case torture could be justified”. It was general gathering of information Sontag also points to history to say the United State is not the first democracy to torture; “the Belgians in Congo, the French in Algeria both practices torture and other kinds of humiliation”. Again she is not justifying torture, but she is pointing out that it was done in the past by the western government not that long ago, during colonial
In today’s society there are many issues surrounding the topic of torture. There are two sides to this argument. One side would be that torture should never be used, the other side would be that torture should be used if it is absolutely necessary. Many times when torture is used it is used to get information out of an individual. On many occasions people hear of torture being used on terrorists that have been captured. Torture is also used on Soldiers that have been captured during war. During times of war torture is often used by both sides to gain an advantage over the other side. The use of torture is a widely debated topic in today’s world.
Cesare Beccaria discusses the issue of torture in his work An Essay on Crimes and Punishments. He states that either a crime is certain or uncertain, and in either circumstance, torture is not a legitimate punishment (Beccaria 530). When a crime has certainly been committed and already has a punishment assigned to it by law, it is useless to torture because you do not need to torture the convicted person to get a confession. If the proof is insufficient to convict the person in question of committing the crime, “it is wrong to torture an innocent person, such as the law adjudges him to be, whose crimes are not yet proved” (Beccaria 530). Torture, therefore, is not acceptable in any case of punishment and should not be used.
These prove the immorality of torture because; it is illegal word wide with rational and moral reasons, accepted that it can work against a country that uses it and, righteously is a transcendental truth beyond humans. There cannot be any exception to the rule whether in wartime, political instability, fighting terrorism or even to defuse a nation full of skepticism towards terrorist factions. Once an exception is made, especially by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (U.S.), there is no way to logically bring justice to those who use torture in future situations. It would bring about the illogical and childish influence of the “do as I say, not as I do” motto. Torture should be condemned by every country and punish those accordingly who do not abide by these superior human dignity rights.
In conclusion, the convention against torture, has brought many people together, and has informed many people of the horrible tortures which go on everywhere from the US to Syria. It has tried to set fine lines which prohibit torture under all circumstances. However, since there is no governing body over countries, it remains difficult to enforce the human right standards sought after by the Convention against torture. The convention has therefore done a good job at identifying the torturers. This has in turn lessened the amount of those persecuted. It will remain a gradual process to eliminate torture from all countries, but nevertheless a necessity, in the quest for universal human rights. Torture will continue until all countries decide for themselves, and not from a third party convention that freedom from torture is a human right everyone deserves.
1) Due to the oral tradition of the novel, there are a number of different voices. What effect is created for the impact of the novel through the interplay of these voices? Storytelling is highly cultural as it can be found in every culture. Storytelling combines new ideas with the likes of others while still relating back to the main story that is trying to be portrayed.