How the News Media Active in Propagating the War on Terror - Dissertation Example

In crude terms, it is commonly accepted that throughout the 20th century, U.S agents have engaged in what is termed by many as torture in numerous locations and at numerous times. The United Nations Convention Against torture “leaves no space for exceptional circumstances, whatsoever, such a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency which may be invoked as a justification of torture and warns that ‘such behaviors are illegal, can never be justified, and the perpetrators should be identified, arrested and punished to the fullest extent”.

In addition, any policies, practices, and procedures that permit or in any way encourage torture should be ended. In the face of a completely new situation emerging from the events of September 11th, 2001, the interrogation techniques used changed dramatically in the name of "emergency" and "the exception of the state". The former term was very much used to maintain and reinforce the sense of danger emerging from the new kind of war on terrorism and thus served as a means to justify the violent practices of the war.

However, based on International law “supreme emergency” ‘signifies a situation where “the very existence of the state is under threat and only under these circumstances states are permitted to do anything deemed necessary for their survival”. This was of course not the case after the 9/11 attacks but the American discourse was so powerful and overcame this implication. The latter term refers to “a point of imbalance between public law and political fact (saitn bonnet 2001 28)and is situated – like civil war, insurrection and resistance- in an ambiguous, uncertain, borderline fringe, at the intersection of the legal and the political” (Fontana 1999, 16).

If exceptional measures are the result of a political crisis, then they immediately become juridical but cannot be recognized in legal terms. At this point, the state of exception appears as the legal form of that which cannot be legally understood, and thus the sovereign is granted the power to "make the regulations and ordinances necessary for the execution of the laws and the security of the State (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/009254.html). In other words, the U.S embodying the state of exception, resorted to extreme violence, contrary to the proclamations of the UN, in the name of emergency, to protect the freedom of its citizens.