Question 1
Torture has been considered as a serious human right violation all-round the world. Torture is prohibited by each country and also the international law. The use of torture on individuals has an effect on their political and civil rights. This issue was the first to be addressed by the United Nations in 1949 after it was formed. The international law as set out by the United Nations is against any form of inhuman and any degrading activities to humans and cannot be accepted at any cost. Torture is the inflict of harm or pain or emotional trauma in any human in any way seen as unfit by a third person intentionally in order to make a statement or gain information from that person or group of persons. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no person should be subjected to any forms of torture or cruelty, degrading or inhuman treatment or punishment either willingly or unwillingly.
Human rights are known to be the right that any human enjoy simply because he is human while Civil rights are rights that a person enjoys because he is a citizen of a particular country. This means that torture once practiced can be classified as both a human and civil right violation. Human rights can be noted to apply all-round the world while civil rights apply to specific countries and only to their registered citizens.
The international law has therefore come up with several ways through which torture can be inflicted to individuals. These include cases in which individual are made to stand against walls for a long period of time. Torture does not always include to injury but may also cause emotional trauma to the victims’ hence human right violation. Degrading or human treatment include acts that inflict physical or mental, anguish, suffering, fear or debase, humiliation to their victims, this can be classified as a form of torture by the international law.
The international system of the fight against terrorism is a major hindrance to this right being implemented to all the citizens. It is widely seen that once terrorists are captured, or suspects of terrorism, in one way or another it happens as if their rights cease to exist. It is highlighted all over the internet that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are tortured and denied most of the rights while in prison as the United States Government focuses on gaining on information about them. With this type of system in place, the fight against torture cannot be fully achieved. The international system is seen to be against it but yet it is seen allowing some of the countries to conduct such practices in silence. The double standards of the system as a result to this have led various contradictions of the law leading to most of the countries to continue with the practice.
Question 2
Since the beginning of mankind, torture has been used by most countries and races against suspects to try to prove the innocence or guilt of a suspect. In most times, it is used to try gain information regarding to a certain activity in which the party involved cannot produce it willingly. Torture was also greatly used in the colonial error to try bringing fear into the locals hence ensuring full submission. With these, it could be seen that torture in the past was used as a means to an end most of the times bearing great results. A good example would be of a tortured suspected terrorist who was tortured by the government in order to reveal to them information. The man refused and the government went ahead to kill his wife and threaten to torture his children till he gives them the information they require. The man broke finally and gave them the information ending up saving lots of lives in the process.
The scenario above is the case of a ticking time bomb. In this case it was up to the government to do whatever it takes in order to save more lives. Such scenarios tortures are justified since they yield results that are of great benefit to the country. Torture can be noticed no matter how inhuman it looks, it can be seen that it can yield result which can be of beneficial to the society.
Torture should be therefore made legal to be used by the military in the future. This involves torture that is monitored and not extreme. There exist various types of torture and physical torture is not preferred at all costs as it may maim the victims. In such cases, psychological torture may be preferred as it will achieved results without much harm to the victims. Due to the increase in terror activities in the world, the world should be well equipped in the fight against terror. This means that new ways of gaining information should be introduced that will result in the easiest and efficient ways to gain information. These ways include the use of torture on the already captured terrorists.
So far, the use of extra-ordinary rendition has proved to bear enough fruits s it has resulted in the obtaining of critical information by the relevant authorities. The December 2, 2002 sign-off which later resulted in the starting of Guantanamo Bay gave torture a new perspective. Prisoners of terror are extracted from their own country and taken to other countries where there their civic rights are stripped hence making them prone to any form of torture. This means that the countries will be in a better position to fight terror by having an insight of how the terror groups are organized and how they operate.
Question 3
Enhanced interrogation techniques or the alternative set of procedures are a form of torture that George W. Bush’s administration used to refer to the procedures they conducted to their suspects which include waterboarding, stress positions and hypothermia. These methods were seen to be employed by the department of defense and Central intelligence Agency at various areas including Baghram, in secret prisons or black sites, in Abu Ghraib on the prisoners and on Guantanamo Bay prison camp. These methods were employed after the September 11th attacks on the American soil.
This sparked controversy all-round the world as they had violated the international law which was against torture and its related activist on their fellow humans. This led to a direct action by the CIA to destroy various video tapes which had recorded this victims being tortured.
This advanced interrogation techniques were the works of Bruce Jessen and James Elmer Mitchell who were two military psychologists. They came up with the harsh torture methods which were more of emotional than physical but bore fruit as they always proved to be effective. These two were hired by the CIA to come up with effective torture techniques that would bear enough fruits without much harm. They ended up developing a program which was referred to as the SERE program used by most in retrieving information from the suspect.
According to the human rights activist, there were internal memos and press reports of the FBI that showed that the program SERE was a harsh technique which was authorized for use on terrorist detainees from 2002. The order was given by the pentagon during the year 2002 and 2003. A memorandum was signed by the president George W. Bush on February 2002 that the third convention which was held in Geneva agreed that the treatment to prisoners of war did not apply to Taliban or al-Qaeda detainees meaning that there were signs that they were being tortured. A memo was also signed in December 2002 by the former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld which approved that in deed there was use of aggressive techniques on the Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees who were held at Guantanamo Bay. These aggressive techniques are attributed to the extensive abuses the prisoners were exposed to. According to ABC, many top former government officials have come up to reveal that truly there was use of these aggressive techniques in the interrogating of detainees in various secret prisons manned by the United States government.
According to Sands’, the lawyers are to be held information as they were well aware of these practices and did not report them to relevant authorities. According to the lawyers’ code of ethics, they are to report any miss-handling of their own clients and they did not report any of this to any authorities.
Question 4
Retired Generals and admirals who were not with the fact that torture should be used by their own country against criminals were the first to defend President Obama when he said that he would bring an end to torture. Obama was quoted saying that the advanced interrogation techniques used by the Bush administration were simply torture. This statement proved to bring a lot of division in the outcry with the citizens wanting to know what really transpired. The CIA was noted to have taken a report about this issue and many wanted it to be availed to the general public.
Darrel Vandeveld was a prosecutor who served in the military commission which was installed in Guantanamo. He therefore was in a position to understand all that is happen in the prison camp. It is alleged that he resigned due to the ethical problems that are associated with the court. He is seen to claim that the court viewed the methods that were used to gain information from the prisoners to be normal. According to the American constitution, such practices are in fact forbidden hence illegal. With these, he ended up resigning as he did not want to be part of it. The use of torture in this prison caused a lot of uproar among the various officials in the military as it was against what their law believed in. more such like Darrel ended up resigning and exposing the practices to the general public to try to bring a stop to them. Darrel is currently serving s Colonel Lieutenant in the Army Reserve.
The opponents were motivated by the fact that more of the military were publicly protesting against these practices. It could be seen that the military was divided greatly against the use of such practices. The government used to send in Black Ops to these prisons, who were specially trained military officials who received orders directly from the White House.
The use of torture has been practiced from long time ago bearing results depending on the method used. With the United States government being the first government confirmed to use these methods in our period, it has displayed great results. The government has been in a position to know when and where the terrorist are most likely to strike next. With the use of torture, Osama Bin Laden was captured after information of his whereabouts was availed to the government.
With such cases in mind, it could be noted that the government has many ways to support the use of torture in its operations considering the results it has displayed. This means that torture does really work depending on how it is conducted. Torture varies with place to place with some considering the use of physical torture and others emotional torture.
Though it can be seen to be achieving its desired intentions, the use of torture is morally wrong. No human has the right to torture his or her fellow human. Torture has many effects on the victims; some become maimed while others remain forever emotionally tortured. For example the use of waterboarding to be specific results to the victims being afraid of water the rest of their lives having continuous nightmares.
In conclusion, with the current terrorism threat in the world, it is best to look at the most effective technique which when used will achieve the best results. In this case, torture has been seen to be achieving the best result has it has resulted in the saving of many lives in the process. With these, the fact that torture does work is more compelling to me as opposed to its evils it creates in the society.
