The fact that the government condones these torture techniques is bad enough. The situation at Guantanamo Bay underscores how deeply the government has delved into torture and other forms of detention that fly in the face of human rights and what is right and wrong. Many Americans may turn their backs on these practices, saying they are "necessary" for the time, but they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to losing human rights and our own personal freedoms. There is little difference between the torture techniques the CIA is using around the world, and many of the tactics the Soviets and many other dictatorships have used throughout the years. The regime of Saddam Hussein of course comes to mind. We "liberated" the Iraqis, only to practice methods of torture on detainees that Saddam himself probably would have approved of and appreciated, and his trial and subsequent hanging indicates that "state-sanctioned murder" is already a part of the government's arsenal of torture and "liberation." The relevance of this book is quite clear. America is a country who champions human rights, and yet, we violate our own theories on human rights by employing these torture tactics in the name of the nation's safety. This country was founded on the principles of human rights, and after World War II, the country was instrumental in helping form the United Nations, a worldwide body that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Americans helped draft and approve (McCoy, 2006, p. 15). To know that the country supports psychological torture, and utilizes it, flies in the face of this Declaration and the ideas...
The country is in effect two-faced, and this book puts all of that into perspective, and much more. This book is relevant to the class because it showcases how important human rights are, and how people can "get away" with abuses because of fear and perceived enemies.
The Rationale for and the Efficacy of Torture during Interrogation Although information from interrogational torture is unreliable, it is likely to be used frequently and harshly. ==John W. Schiemann, 2012 Introduction The epigraph above is indicative of the growing consensus concerning the lack of efficacy of torture in providing interrogators with reliable concealed information Concealed information is the foundation of the majority of security issues. In most cases, concealed information is a situation
" The point of bringing this up is, this is an age of violence in the world and throughout the entertainment industry, and so it is not surprising to hear Washington politicians rationalize, backtrack, dip into semantics and find euphemisms that work well when it comes to issues of torture. A very well-known philosopher - the late Elizabeth Anscombe - stood up and was counted when it came to ethics and
Torture has been a tool of coercion for nearly all of human history, whether to instill fear in a population or force people to convert, but almost all contemporary attempts to justify the use of torture revolve around torture as a means of extracting information from a victim. Used in this context, torture has a number of prominent advocates, despite the fact that ample historical and experimental evidence suggests that
This resulted in many countries rejecting majority if not all of the aspects regarding torture. However, torture is still being practiced in quite a few countries although they would rather not accept it in front of their own public or on the international level. There are a number of devices that are being used in order to bridge this gap such as "need to know," country denial, using jurisdictional
S. Congress 2006). Under a military commission's procedures and rules of evidence, the accused may present evidence, cross examine witnesses against him, and respond to evidence presented against him; attend all the sessions of the trial; and have the rights to counsel and self-representation. The bill does not grant him the right to see all the evidence against him to establish his guilt or innocence. It authorizes the Secretary to
.. information or a confession, punishing him for an act he... has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him (qtd. "United Nations"). The effects of the Abu Gharib scandal, and the other interrogation concerns coming from Guantanamo Bay, led to the recently passed Military Commissions Act, which further clarifies the United States' position on the use of alternative interrogation methods and what is and is not
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