Use of Torture to Gain Intelligence - Research Paper Example

Use of Torture to Gain Intelligence Use of torture The act of deliberately inflicting severe physical pain and injury is torture. This is also done psychologically or through animal torture. This has been carried out by groups, individuals or states throughout history As quoted by Bruce Anderson, torture is revolting. A man in front of a firing squad or on a scaffold, can retain human dignity, but not in a torture chamber. The torturers aim to break their victims apart. Their main objective is to reduce a human being to a whimpering wreck. It has been more than 300 years that torture has been illegal [And10]. There are various reasons of torture. They include punishment, revenge, political re-education, deterrence, interrogation or coercion. Mostly the torture proves to be deliberately fatal, however, most of the time this is not the case and killing and injuring the victim is not the sole purpose. According to research, torture is not a very good way of obtaining information and actionable intelligence. This is because after a person received physical or psychological punishment, the mind breaks down as a result of which the information is subject to inaccuracies in memory recall. History of the Use of Torture It was until the development of Humanism in the 17th century, deliberately painful methods of execution for severe crimes was taken as granted as part of justice. Torture was sanctioned by some states previously. In the 21st century, most of the countries have prohibited torture under the international and domestic laws. Under the UN convention and declaration of human rights, it is unacceptable and is considered violation of human rights. One of the most controversial aspects of the global ‘war on terror’ was the use of torture during interrogations. The United States of America administration for combating the threat of global terrorism developed several new methods. This happened after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. The detention and interrogation of the suspected terrorists has been the central to the United States struggle against global terrorism [Wal08]. According to the international laws of warfare, the same rules of lawful combatants were not applicable for detained terrorists since they were not fighting as lawful combatants. However, some policy makers of the US argued that the use of torture should be legalized to gain intelligence under certain extreme circumstances. Use of torture to gain intelligence during wars During the Algerian war on Independence (1954-1962), the French armed forces along with the Algerian National Liberation Front (FNL) made use of torture. This war was about gaining an independent Algeria, after 130 years of French rule. Numerous French people were killed in the attacks made by the FNL. This provoked the French government and they brought in military soldiers to establish law and order in French Algeria. They also wanted to defeat the rebellious uprisings of the FNL. It was difficult for the French to root out the rebellious leaders of Algeria. Also, it was difficult to make out how the enemy was carrying out the bombings, and how to stop the innocent civilians being killed. In short, the French wanted a way out and prevent any sort of civilian uprisings. France ratified the Geneva conventions in 1951, thus the military did not consider themselves tied to them. Apart from prohibiting torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross was given access to the detainees by the Geneva Convention. FLN members, old people, children and women were included as detainees and not granted the Prisoner of War (POW) status. This means that they were considered as terrorist and not given the rights which are legally entitled to belligerents during a war. In order to stop rebellion, the French openly announced the use of torture. French interrogators used methods such as beatings, electric shocks, and particularly water torture, which is considered to be the most dangerous technique for prisoners. According to a French intelligence officer, the interrogation did not last for long as the victims would quickly speak in the hope of saving their own lives. This shows how successful the French were in capturing the FLN leaders through torture techniques. The Americans are seen to have similar enemy problems like the French had. For the Americans, they appeared to be the disguise of the Taliban fighters. According to an old-age tactic, if you co-locate with the civilian population, the coalition party would not bomb in the villages for fear of killing the innocent people. The Taliban fighters relied on this tactic. The locals are usually the best source of gaining actionable intelligence. In order to fight the Taliban’s, American forces, civil affairs personnel and psychologists would come to the local villagers and rely on intelligence. In order to gain the confidence of the local villagers, the Americans have to make sure that they convince the locals that they have invaded their lands not to occupy them, but to assist the people. The Americans and other coalition forces to obtain intelligence in Afghanistan use various methods. Now due to the technological advancements, the combatant commanders are provided with real time video information through surveillance planes and human intelligence through people who are operational on ground. The spirits of many Vietnamese and American soldiers were shattered during the Vietnam conflict. This was due to the use of torture and majority of the critical information was provided. The latest report of torture used by the Americans was the Abu Ghuraib prison. The military continued to use torture as a means of gaining intelligence although America has signed the Geneva Convention agreement against torture [Bry08]. Pros and Cons of Using Torture Ever since the 9/11 scenario, there have been mixed views by people as to whether torture should be prohibited or made legal. Arguments, which are in favor of torture, are usually consequential. These arguments mainly rely on the failure to torture such kinds of terrorists who possess information about the planned use of weapons of mass destruction for their moral force. However, the arguments against torture are expected to be more de-ontological. This means that inviolable human rights and the duties that correspond to those rights for their persuasiveness are some of the conceptions they believe in [Cas]. Torture strips away another person’s secrets by abjectly debasing an individual’s body. There is a distinctive kind of wrong involved in torture, which is not present in any other form of violence, which is why it is considered to be morally offensive [Kir11]. Torture should be made permissible in certain constrained circumstances and not ruled out completely. However, it is practically impossible to justify any particular decision to act as an exception to the prohibition of torture interrogation. Stance of KANT and MILLS on the use of torture John Stuart Mill has presented the theory of Utilitarianism in which he argues that right actions are the ones that maximizes total aggregate happiness. Hence according to him, torture will be morally required if it maximizes total aggregate happiness. There is a tremendous potential for disutility in torture. Some examples include the effects on the terrorist, effects on the interrogator, the consideration that torture will eventually increase the incidence of terrorism, the manifestation that torture will leave a negative impact on the populations and that they will suffer psychological discomfort. All these manifests unhappiness, and thus weakens the utilitarian views of torture. He provides a justification to this weakness by limiting these disutilities and adjusting the case in a way such that the disutilities are eclipsed by greater and countervailing utilities [All]. Kant on the other hand recognizes the existence of human free will and reasonability. He argues, that humans should be included in getting their consent, in most cases humans are avoided to give their own consent. Therefore, they should be involved in their own plan, practice or project. Hence for him, questions of consent are of paramount importance. According to his theory of justice, people are to be treated the way they are. He further clarifies his stance by giving an example of a combatant in war. A combatant does not consent to give up on his life for the cause that he is defending [Cas]. Torture is a violation of human rights and blemishes the reputation of USA America is one of the self appointed countries and global leader on human rights. This means that since long, it has been pointing out the shortcomings of others. However, the tables have turned against the US now. According to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Council, there are a lot of incidents of injustice taking place on the US soil itself. In a Convention of Geneva in Switzerland, the convention managed to pull of 228 recommendations on how US can do better. However, this provoked the US and they dismissed many recommendations stating that they are political provocations by the hostile countries. According to research, more than 2.3 million are currently behind the bars in America, which makes America having the world’s largest prison population. The state of hypocrisy is to the extent, that ignoring its own high number of people on a death row, America has been lecturing the world about humanity [Ame10]. Works Cited And10: , (Anderson, 2010), Wal08: , (Walton, 2008), Bry08: , (Bryon, 2008), Cas: , (Casabeer), Kir11: , (Kirss, 2011), All: , (Allhoff), Ame10: , (America’s human rights hypocrisy, 2010), Read More