Is Torture Ever Acceptable - Coursework Example

Argument for Torture

Introduction

The practice of torture is repulsive. This is because even on a scaffold or placed in front of a trained firing squad; a person can end up meeting his demise with some form of dignity. When torture is involved, the torturer aims to break the victim, rob him of dignity as well as violate not only his physical body but also his soul. In England, the practice was outlawed in the 17th C and for the most part of the more than three centuries that came after, the decision seemed like a final verdict. The practice had been a barbaric relic that most people believed should have remained in the dark ages.

During these years, any person that suggested torture may still have a critical role to play would have been looked at in disdain. If only it were that simple to proclaim that the dark ages are over hence torture deemed unnecessary. But the dark ages cannot be conclusively said to be over. For example, in the Middle East, there exist fanatics who despise the way of life of the west and would employ barbaric acts to inflict harm on the society; women and children included. Their challenge ought to be effectively confronted and it would be naïve to make the assumption that this can easily be attained within the realms of the UN Geneva Convention.

Discussion

A US Senate Report on the CIA touching on torture has generated headlines across the globe and the intelligence agency has swiftly been tried and convicted in the global opinion court. Criticism of the practice may not always be just. Several former CIA directors and deputy directors have firmly rebutted the report as well as the unjust coverage that the agency is being subjected to (Luban, 255). This having been stated, the question still remains; could the practice of torture ever be justified? There are many people of the school of thought that the answer should be, without a doubt, No. Their main argument is that allowing torture would destroy any claims that the West may have to moral superiority over the terrorists making the West no better than them.

Such kinds of arguments are part of an eloquent appeal to the human being’s better nature and would be solid if only the society was only filled with angels or infallible beings. However, in the real world, we are faced with challenges from ruthless groups of gangs and terrorists whose mode of inflicting death and misery knows no bounds. An American attorney, Alan Dershowitz, once used the phrase ‘ticking bomb’ (Sung, 193). This was in reference to a scenario which humanity wishfully hopes never takes place. A terrorist organization comes into possession of a nuclear device. In such a case, time is at a premium but a member of the group is under captivity. In such circumstances, how will the Geneva Convention save our civilization? Torture would thus be surely justified.

In every confrontation, information is a formidable tool. In the ongoing war on terrorism where the opponent does not put on a uniform and embeds itself among regular population, information tends to be more precious. The 9/11 attacks have not managed to drive any established democratic state to reverse itself or its ideals by making torture legal; however, the attacks have led to a push to bend the definitions as well as turning a blind eye. There is an evident readiness that among countries that in the past would have never entertain the practice to use any information that has been obtained by third parties through various modes of torture (Twiss, 347).

Starting with definitions, most of the civilized societies squirm at the very thought of placing suspected terrorist combatants on a torture device. However, what is the captive was aware of the location of a weapon that has the potential to wipe out the entire European continent? Wouldn’t some form of sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, or suffocation be completely justified in a bid to save an continent of hundreds of millions?

In a survey carried out by the BBC on 28,000 people across 25 nations in 2007, more than 33% in 9 of the 25 countries including the U.S. considered some degree of torture to be tolerable if it ends up averting attacks. However, opposition to any forms of torture was at its highest among most European as well as English speaking nations. A different poll carried out by the Pew Research Center ended up with results stating that almost fifty percent of all Americans believed that torture of suspected terrorists may at times be justified (Blakeley, 382). The trend can be witnessed even on the US presidential race. Two GOP presidential hopefuls, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, were in support of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques of captives in case the country faced an imminent attack. Former US Vice President, Dick Cheney, one suggested that water boarding a terrorist in a bid to save lives should be encouraged rather than criticized. However, the statement led to an uproar that led him to backtrack and claim that he was not speaking about water-boarding or any other forms of simulated drowning. This technique is viewed as torture and has subsequently been banned in the US army’s interrogation manual.

One of the objections to permitting any forms of physical pressure is the inability to know where to finally draw the line. In the event that stress positions or sleep deprivation fails to work, are the law enforcement agencies permitted to go ahead and beat the suspect or brand them with a hot iron? It is this imminent danger of going down a slippery slope that make those who are opposed to the practice insist on a complete banning of the practice. Israel is the only nation during modern era to openly encourage moderate forms physical pressure as a method of last resort. The proponents in Israel argued that since various interrogators utilized such methods anyway, enacting an explicit guideline or law may at the very least make it easy to put in place some forms of limits to the practice (Ramsay, 105). However, in the year 1999, the country’s Supreme Court, citing the slippery-slope argument, reversed the law and subsequently banned techniques like exposure to extremes of cold and hot, sleep deprivation, hooding, prolonged forms of stress positions as well as violent shaking.

A question still lingers; even if a government bans torture, how is it supposed to treat information that other allies have obtained in this manner? Britain’s court of Appeal, in 2004, stated that any information obtained with the help of torture was admissible in court as evidence Even though the government publicly condemned torture, the Appeals court judge stated that it would be irresponsible not to take appropriate account of any form of information that could end up assist in protecting public safety and national security. However, it is worth noting that this Appellate court ruling was overturned by the country’s House of Lords. Currently, 144 states have ratified the UN convention against the practice with India surprisingly being among the countries that have not done so; yet, the United Nations special rapporteur told the security council that the practice still remains widespread. An Amnesty international report noted that cases of state sponsored torture are still going on in 102 of the 153 countries (Slater, 194).

Many torture critics of the practice assert that it is an ineffective and repugnant practice. Their reason for saying this is because people will state anything just to get the pain or torture to come to an end. Looking at it this way, the critics proclaim that any information gleaned will not be reliable However, if you look at this from a different perspective, if people state anything when they are subjected to torture, it is expected that some of what they end up saying may be true and thus useful to law enforcement agencies. A good example would be the case of Guy Fawkes on from who torture extracted vital information that betrayed his co-conspirators planning to blow up the British parliament.

Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine, took more than 450 pages to unearth the world view that views torture as being useful. The world currently needs pragmatic and difficult choices to tackle the marriage of violence and greed that has become the globe’s biggest threat to civilization. George Tenet, a CIA director up until 2004, is quoted as saying that the intelligence agency’s widely condemned or criticized rendition program managed to save countless lives. The program extracted invaluable information that was used to disrupt plots in the battle against terrorism.

In modern warfare, there is a term, collateral damage, which is regularly thrown around meaning the killing or maiming of innocent noncombatants. It is largely unavoidable and will remain so for the considerable future. The issue would still be a problem even if our militaries had far smarter bombs than they do currently. It would remain an issue even if we only got involved in defensive wars. There is no escaping the fact that whenever a drop is dropped or a drone gets dispatched, it is done so in the knowledge that some innocent civilians will be maimed, paralyzed or even killed in the process. The only way to avoid this kind of damage is to refuse to engage in any conflict and adopt a pacifist Gandhi stand. However, pacifism in the modern world is only applicable to a notably limited range of human conflicts. If all the good people adopted a pacifist stand, then the evil doers and terrorists will inherit the earth and impose their ideals on us.

It can now be asked, if governments and society as a whole are willing to act in a manner that guarantees death and misery of some considerable number of innocent civilians for the greater good of those remaining, who should the merciless terrorists be treated with kids’ gloves? It is genuinely bizarre that while the torture of someone of the caliber of Bin Laden could be expected to elicit convulsions of conscience within society and the civil society, the foreseeable slaughter of innocent civilians on the battle field does not. The opponents to torture would prefer to live in an ideal world while, unfortunately, that is not the case. The practice of torture need not impose a notable risk of one’s death or a permanent form of injury on its victims, while those on the receiving end of collateral damage are almost certain to get killed or crippled. The ethical divide that appears to be opening up in this argument suggests that those willing to send drones should be willing to abduct the nearest as well as dearest of suspected terrorists and torture them to increase the chances of something profitable surfacing for the law enforcement departments.

Conclusion

The issue of torture has been a controversial subject for decades. However, the war on terror has forced the world to examine the issue in different light. I support use of torture in cases such as the ticking time bomb scenario if its use ends up averting a significant disaster. The practice should not be outlawed in its entirety rather we should follow Israel pre-1999 example and come up with guidelines that will prevent security agencies from going down the slippery slope.