Torture broadly defined is one of the most heinous things that humanity has concocted in its history. There is a reason why it has been classified as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Torture is a barbaric, inhuman practice, which has absolutely no place in the civilized world. Despite these simple truths, the Bush Administration in the prosecution of the Global War on Terror after the terrorist attacks of 9/11; resorted to the used of torture or what they euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The use of torture by the Bush Administration drew lots of moral reproach from many in the public policy and intellectual arena. There is no good reason to ever torture anyone and Christopher Hitchens in his article for Vanity Fair “Believe Me, It’s Torture” as well as latter reports by Senate saying that so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” are ineffective.
It’s hard to delve into the issue of the Bush Administration’s record on torture without first citing some important background facts about how it was justified legally by its own lawyers. Bush’s lawyers justified the use of torture by claiming that the main combatants in the War on Terror were not prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. They instead claimed that Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay were excluded because they “did not wear uniforms, did not operate under a responsible commanders and systematically violated the laws of war.” (Ripley) This argument was written by the most famous defender for the legal basis of enhanced interrogation, John Yoo. The selective use of the Geneva Convention and a weak argument for its breaking in the course of the War on Terror by Yoo and others are simply inhuman and are not very good ones. Just because, a fighter is not represented by a nation-state and is not a uniformed soldier should not mean anything to his protection under the laws of war and simple human decency.
One of the famous, and well known, of the inhuman interrogation techniques used by the US during the Bush Admiration was water boarding. Christopher Hitchens, subjected himself to the treatment in order to see how bad it was. Hitchens describes the process as not merely the simulation of drowning but instead actually drowning and the act of breathing. Hitchens describes the feeling of being water boarded as though he had a huge, thing placed on his face which restricted his ability to breathe and to know whether he was breathing in or out which caused panic. Now I understand that we are using these techniques on bad guys, terrorists and rebels, but as Hitchens himself argues there are four arguments against the use of torture. First it is illegal; second, if we use it we can’t complain if others use it on us; third, it is ineffective and finally it leads down to a slippery slope of more torture and more vile methods of it (Hitchens) Simply put, torture is an inhuman practice that all civilized people should abhor no matter what the circumstances. The most important fact to me is that it is ineffective as pointed out by a Senate report which claimed that suspects subjected to waterboarding “either produced no intelligence, or they “fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence.” (Borger) If the fact that these techniques are illegal and inhuman aren’t enough for you them being ineffective to boot should be a clincher.
The Bush Administration after 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq tried to fabricate legal reasoning for the use of torture and although they were able to use them for a while ultimately it became quite clear that these tactics were outside the American legal tradition and very much unacceptable according to humanitarian standards and international law.
Works Cited
Borger, J. "US Report on ‘enhanced Interrogation’ Concludes: Torture Doesn’t Work." The Guardian. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/senate-committee-cia-torture-does-not-work>.
Hitchens, Christopher. "Believe Me, It's Torture." Vanity Fair. Aug. 2008. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/08/hitchens200808>.
Ripley, Amanda. "Redefining Torture." Time. 13 June 2004. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,650689,00.html>.
