Torture is widely viewed as being illegal and without foundation on a legal precept but it has been used since time immemorial to extract confessions and information from its victims. Since torture deliberately inflicts severe physical and psychological pain, the end results can be deemed to be destructive on the individual who is suffering them and one also has to consider the effects on the persons and individuals who perform torture that eventually become sanitized and brutalized at the same time. The thesis statement in this essay is that although torture may provide information, the means by which this information is extracted is immoral and violent.
Torture has been practised since time immemorial and has varied in brutality or psychological dominance. The Chinese and Assyrians practised several innovative forms of torture such as the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and the wheel which eventually resulted in horrible and violent death for the unfortunate victim. It is debatable whether these were effective methods to coerce victims into producing statements or information and it may seem that the end scope was to kill the victim outright with not much importance given to the information elicited.
Torture is also a bad method when used for military purposes. It was also practised in military arenas when captured enemy personnel were made to suffer horribly at the hands of expert psychological interrogators. These methods were widely used by the Romans and also by Arabs when they forcibly converted Christians to their faith after threatening (and actually carrying out) draconian forms of torture. Although torture has been continually practised for thousands of years, it is now illegal and is prohibited by the United Nations. Notwithstanding this, several countries continue using torture with some governments practising it in an open manner.
The United States continues to practise torture in extreme cases although the extent of this is subject for discussion. Several news outlets have reported what went on during the 2003-2010 Iraq War where infamous torture techniques such as ‘waterboarding’ were used to elicit information from victims. Other cases where the media was instrumental in exposing torture was the situation regarding the photographs at the Abu Ghraib prison where a number of inmates were systematically brutalized and humiliated with the photos appearing in full view all over the internet and causing a sensation apart from horror. The United States was also responsible for psychological and physical torture in other theatres of war such as Afghanistan and in countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where specific cases of torture occurred to reveal the whereabouts of military secrets and other vital information.
Although torture is always seen as wrong from a human standpoint, there have been arguments where the end result is positive. In the case of the counter insurgency after 9/11, torture practised on suspected terrorists has arguably yielded positive results since several similar attacks were thwarted by information extracted under torture. However the moral implications for the extraction of such information continues to create substantial debate since this may be seen as immoral and going against the human rights of the individual being tortured. Illegal detention has also been arguable touted as a form of torture and the Guantanamo Bay case is actually a demonstration of this. Still, torture may serve its purpose if it is used subtly and without much aggression.
Torture may also be seen as justifiable for the prevention of war. This was the case in countries where vicious standards prevailed and includes war theatre areas such as Nicaragua and Korea. However the implications of such torture techniques have continued to cause concern and controversy especially since their effect on minority societies has been substantial and extremely negative. Countries who implement such techniques and who are supposed to be democratic, tarnish their reputation significantly when such incidents occur, and this in turn causes problems for a proper evaluation of victim’s rights. There have been cases where multimillion pound settlements have been made by torture victims such as those by the former Mau Mau activists in Kenya and Algerians in Algeria. Torture eventually always descends into barbarity as was the case in French colonial possessions.
Torture is a practise which should never be condoned under any circumstances. Apart from creating irreparable moral and psychological damage, it also creates a dangerous precedent which can descend into freefall as regards moral sanity. One should also examine the negative effect on the torturer as what happened in the case of the Jewish extermination by Nazi death squads which although not strictly speaking torture but murder still creates a sanitized and accustomed sense of violence. The information elicited from torture sessions is also tainted and more often than not may tend to be incorrect since victims may talk to avoid suffering further physical or psychological punishment. The way torture has developed over the years also means that today it is more subtle and less dependent on brute force to extract information but that does not make it any more justifiable. Torture should be outlawed all over the world and those found guilty of practising it should be shunned accordingly. However the argument of punishment with something wrong then comes into the fray but the general agreement is that torture is wrong and unforgivable.
Works Cited
Parry, John T. (2010). Understanding Torture: Law, Violence, and Political Identity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-05077-2.
Schmid, Alex P.; Crelinsten, Ronald D. (1994). The politics of pain: torturers and their masters. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-2527-7.
Waldron, Jeremy; Colin Dayan (2007). The Story of Cruel and Unusual (Boston Review Books). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-04239-8.
Reddy, Peter (2005). Torture: What You Need to Know, Ginninderra Press, Canberra, Australia. ISBN 1-74027-322-2
Levinson, Sanford (2006). Torture: A Collection. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-530646-5.2010
Scarry, Elaine (1985). The body in pain the making and unmaking of the world. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504996-9.
Conroy, John (2001). Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23039-6.
