Confronting Terror: Coercion - Research Paper Example

Confronting Terror: Coercion Coercion in the interrogation process is a technique that gained major attention when it came to light in the Bush Administration after the September 11 attacks of 2001. Vast amounts of information in the form of written records, tapes, and voice records showed that prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib detention camps were being interrogated using questionable means. Coercion, or ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, as it is now called involves using certain harsh interrogation methods including waterboarding, starvation, and hypothermia. Over the years, many human rights advocates and legal counsels have debated over the use of these controversial techniques, and devised outlines and laws to terminate them from being put to use today. Many unaware individuals seem to think that getting a confession out of someone involves a few hours of tricky questions and holes laid out by the detectives for the suspect to fall into. While this may indeed work for petty criminals, it is largely ineffective when dealing with larger crimes such as terrorism or homicide. The difference is important because in these ‘bigger’ crimes, so to speak, the suspects that the police deal with are good at evading and avoiding all responsibility and more often than not, very uncooperative. These confessions involve great psychological manipulation and are not always successful with the use of simple, ‘questioning’ methods. The use of deeper techniques comes into play when dealing with criminals of this sort, as do the moral and legal complications (Leo, pp. 79-85). The concerned authorities have never duly laid out the distinction between coercion and torture (which is widely condemned by courts worldwide). No court of law has clearly established the limits on coercion, and the United Nations’ Convention against torture merely offered an inadequate definition of the word ‘torture’ with terms that were open to interpretation. Namely, "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession" (Tucker, pp. 211-225). In many cases, courts of law have allowed mild to moderate coercion to be used in getting information out of suspects. While not strictly ‘legal’, physical abuse was a somewhat acceptable method of getting information from a suspect or an unwilling witness. Even today, interrogators are allowed to use yelling, threatening, and at times mild physical abuse towards suspects as means of coercion as long as the suspects sign off that the confession they gave as a result was valid and coherent. However, many times, interrogators go overboard with their interrogation techniques and oftentimes, controversies arise because many believe that particular interrogations have gone awry and resulted in undignified conduct of suspects. Coercion at times can violate basic human dignity. Many moral thinkers and socialists argue that when questioning suspects leads to them being physically assaulted, or when interrogators swear at their suspects using derogatory terms and curse words, this transcends into being ethically unacceptable. Furthermore, it is thought that making suspects uncomfortable by forcing them into painful positions (twisting arms, holding them facedown with their hair) also violates ethical standards that should be respected by law practitioners (Guiora, pp. 80-84). Another interesting aspect by which many lawyers argue is that physical coercion should not be employed to get information out of suspects because under the constitution, every man is assumed innocent unless proven otherwise, which means that interrogators could possibly be handing out unfavourable treatment to a potentially innocent person. Thus, under these circumstances, many sociologists believe that coercion violates a citizen’s constitutional rights and liberties (Guiora, pp. 86). Moreover, the same constitutional rights are also infringed upon because by the Fifth and Sixth amendment all citizens are given the right to maintain their silence or only speak to or in the presence of their appointed counsel. Thus in this case coercion to obtain information is not only redundant (because it is not admissible in a court of law), but forbidden. The biggest problem with coercion as a means of obtaining information today comes when coercion and torture stop becoming mutually exclusive. That is, when interrogators get so carried away with their job that they are actively torturing the person on the other side of the table. Examples of this are found all over the documents and records leaked about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. In these detention centers, prisoners went through waterboarding, hypothermia, and long periods of starvation. Moreover, pictures and video tapes of prisoners being chained and dragged across rough ground were also resurrected. Another shocking revelation was that many CIA agents had admittedly destroyed tapes containing information on interrogation methods used because they felt that the possibility of the tapes landing in the wrong hands or becoming open to the public would be detrimental for the USA because of the major use of torture suspected (Tucker, pp. 292 – 295). Ever since the September 11 attacks, there has been huge debate on the issue of coercion and whether it is ever justified. Many supporters of coercion as a permissible means of interrogation argue using the Time-Bomb Scenario. In this situation, they argue that if a terrorist has been arrested after being suspected to have information on several bombs, and another bomb is believed to be detonated in an hour, is coercion not justified when it, in effect, will save tens of lives? So, many argue that in the event of an imminent attack that could potential cause massive loss of life and damage to property, using force to extract information is not only permissible but advisable too. Others argue still that torture in itself is a form of punishment. They claim that terrorists and hard criminals do not deserve to have their rights and dignity upheld as they have warranted such treatment due to their heinous crimes that harm their society and the people in it. Many modern day analysts and thinkers have taken up the stance that flexibility should be embraced in a legal system. That is to say, the law should not be a blanket law. Admittedly, every criminal is unique and every crime only more so. In addition, a good judiciary will allow for a more ‘tailor-made’ approach to the practice of law and this extends to the means of interrogation. It is argued that terrorist factions, such as Taliban and Al-Qaeda do not respect human life or dignity and so should be dealt with in the same fashion, especially since obtaining information from these sought-after terrorists is extremely pivotal in the face of the war on terror. In addition, many believe that any attempt not made to do so compromises on national security, and that is unethical, too (Dean & Yoo, pp. 78 – 87). In a nutshell, they argue that the dignity of hundreds of innocent civilians that could potentially be killed by any un-tipped terrorist overrides that of the terrorist. Those people that stand rooted against coercion have their reasons for doing so as well. Many believe that allowing coercion under any circumstance is a dangerous position to take because by endorsing coercion in a particular stance, we are, in essence, endorsing coercion period. That is to saw that police officers and interrogators could be seen as using coercion in high-risk cases as a precedent for using ‘milder’ forms in lesser offences as well. Moreover, many opponents of coercion voice reservations over the introduction of violence in a system that has fought tooth-and-nail to eliminate it. They claim that the justice system should not be room to any form of violence, not by the citizens and definitely not by the practitioners of law. If, in fact, violence is allowed, the many liberties that citizens attach to ‘dignified interrogation’ will now be lost and the justice system will once again be viewed as a negative estate. That is to say that if basic legal principles are abandoned at the most sensitive point of the justice system, it would be a hypocritical stance that it would go against the liberties that the democratic governments of the world are trying so hard to defend. Unfortunately, the issue of the use of coercion is no black-and-white matter. There are many things to consider when advocating for or against it, especially given the surge of terrorism all over the world today. No judge or politician will openly condemn coercion because there will always be those of the belief that coercion does lead to answers and tips that enable the police to save thousands of lives every year. On the other hand, many people argue that allowing coercion to be used in even extremely dangerous crime cases will lead to leniency being employed at a lower level, allowing cops and interrogators to have a looser stance on the use of coercion. The world, however, seems to have come to a silent agreement that coercion is admissible in the events of a major crime such as terrorism. Works Cited Dean, Reuter, and Yoo, John. Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. Encounter Books. 2011. Guiora, Amos N. Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation. Oxford University Press. 2008. Leo, Richard A. Police Interrogation, and American Justice. Harvard University Press. 2009. Tucker, Spencer C. The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars. ABC-CLIO. 2010. Read More