In the article “The Case for Torture”, Michael Levin argues that the use of torture as a way to save lives is justifiable and necessary. Levin draws a series of cases where torture might be acceptable so as to set certain precedent for the justification of torture in more realistic cases. HoweverLevin illustrates three cases where torture might be justifiable.he describes a terrorist keeping city of millions hostage to an atomic bomb, the second, a terrorist who has implanted remote bombs on a plane and the third, a terrorist who has kidnapped a baby. torture and its consequences have been recorded in countries around of world over a vast span of time, and for a variety of reasons. Levin makes no such attempt to expand his article beyond
In Michael Levin’s “The Case for Torture”, he uses many cases of emotional appeal to persuade the reader that torture is necessary in extreme cases. There are many terms/statements that stick with the reader throughout the essay so that they will have more attachment to what is being said. Levin is particularly leaning to an audience based in the United States because he uses an allusion to reference an event that happened within the states and will better relate to the people that were impacted by it. The emotional appeals used in this essay are used for the purpose of persuading the reader to agree that in extreme instances torture is necessary and the United States should begin considering it as a tactic for future cases of extremity. One major eye catching factor of this essay is the repetitive use of words that imply certain stigmas.
Neither one of the circumstances was ethical at any point and had been publicized by the media for its explicit type of interrogation methods as well as sadistic behavior. In particular, Phil Zimbardo has argued that the study shows that strong situational forces can override individual differences in personality and moral values. In Abu Ghraib, soldiers were inserted into the role of prison guards and began to sadistically torment prisoners there and at other detention sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of the specific acts of humiliation were similar to those that transpired in the Stanford Prison Experiment, according to Zimbardo. This theory has been challenged by allegations by Seymour Hersh, in the New Yorker, that these soldiers were in fact acting under direct orders of their superiors as part of a top secret Pentagon intelligence gathering program authorized by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
Applebaum has plenty of evidence to back up her claim that physical torture is not effective, and there are many other ways to obtain information. While the fear-encouraging and questioning elements are potent to many who are afraid of terror committed against them, but when the overwhelming sentiment of Levin’s argument is being compared to the logic and ethical points of Applebaum it is clear to see the superiority of her argument. Although Levin would advocate for physical torture in extreme situations, one must expect extreme consequences. Physical torture is rarely effective, violates rights, and damages a whole nation’s credibility. This is why physical torture should not be
Over the past fourteen years, approximately 779 men suspected of terrorism have been detained at the Prison for Alleged Terrorists at the United States Naval Base, Guantanamo, Cuba. Now, only eighty men remain. A highly controversial debate surrounding this camp is whether or not closing Gitmo – as the prison came to known – is justifiable and whether or not it should be done. There is one simple answer to this argument. The closing of the Prison for Alleged Terrorists is not justifiable, or reasonable, and therefore should not be done.
However, many would argue that with facilities such as Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and CIA black sites, the punishment aspects of the law itself are null and void. The United States has engaged in detaining and sentencing suspected "terrorists" to indefinite incarceration, due process, and unconstitutional punishment. According to the agonistic perspective found in Breaking the Pendulum, the consistent instability and conflicting ideologies of the political and scene in the United States has led to a constant shift in incarceration when it comes to the indefinite detainment and punishment of suspected terrorists based on specified traits agreed upon by the collective
The Prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were not allowed this kind of free time and given the same kinds of activities to involve themselves with. These prisoners were kept in cells or cages and were often interrogated very harshly by the prison guards. Some of the interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo Bay included escalating pressure tactics, extended isolation, twenty hour long interrogations, painful stress positions, yelling, hooding, and manipulation of diet, environment and stress2. This is what most of the prisoners time consisted of while being kept in Guantanamo Bay. Some prisoners even developed hallucinations, nightmares, anxiety, and depression from these interrogation techniques2.
In the last five pages of “The Shock Doctrine”, Klein (2007) explores the connection between the destruction of minds in pursuance of perfection and the destruction of Iraq in order to create an ideal country. Klein begins by focusing on several American prisons in which electroshock therapy and intense sensory deprivation is administered to prisoners regularly. “For many prisoners, the effects of these techniques have been: […] total regression” expressed as a “permanently delusional“ state (Klein pg. .51). The purpose of this regression, as Klein (2007) previously explains at the end of the chapter, is to erase all traces of the people these prisoners once were and to use that as a means of remaking them into model citizens. An idea perpetuated
Ever since July 4, 1776, the United States has been the land of the free, home of the brave, and anyone who was in the United States had the same constitutional rights young, old, good, and bad. That fact was true until January, 2002 when Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility (GITMO) was opened. GITMO is a detention facility that was approved by congress after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 so that the terrorists can be detained, tried, and punished. GITMO is located on a naval base in Cuba it is located in Cuba so that the terrorists do not touch American soil. This sounds like a great idea of paper, trying terrorists for the horrible attacks that they have committed against innocent people, and being able to detain the convicted in Cuba away
The torturers deprive them of sleep because sleep deprivation reduces the individual’s resistance of pain (“Torture” para. 4). Another way Guantanamo Bay tortures its people is by having the person watch someone else be tortured. It is said to have the same mental effects of actually being tortured (“Torture” para. 16). Now George Mason and Patrick Henry made sure that they made a Bill of Rights because they hated the idea of torture. It is quite obvious the Founding Fathers were against the idea of torture (Cole para.
The United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 was dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom by US Forces, but it seemed like freedom was the last thing on their minds. Abu Ghraib prison was an occupied Iraqi prison where the US Army held mass incarcerations and sponsored inmate torture. 2007 marked the year that a documentary titled “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” was produced by HBO and directed by Rory Kennedy. This documentary showed the abuses and injustices inured to the Iraqi prisoners at the hands of the United States Soldiers. Although the guards at Abu Ghraib Prison Complex had personal reservations against the treatment of the prisoners, they were manipulated into authoritarianism by their overzealous obedience.
The parallels between the Stanford Prison and Abu Ghirab Prison are strong because in both cases because in both cases, people were being humiliated, degraded and dehumanized. Zimbaro explain that in his experiment the scenes from the Abu Ghirab Prison were “interchangeable”. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, healthy men who had clean backgrounds participated in the experiment ad ended up behaving in a way that they themselves could not predict. The similarities also occurred in the Ghirab Prison when the members of the military who lacked a criminal record, and passed the military psychological tests were now found guilty of “dehumanizing, demeaning, innocent” others in a manner that we know as “evil”. For example, when the US soldiers who were seen as good members dehumanized the Arab civilians, the environment had othered them in their minds like what occurred in the video of the Stanford Experiment when the student who became a guard mentioned that he had to speak to himself and think of the prisoners as inferior.
Inhumane Rights At Guantanamo Extreme. Out of an entire English language, this word fits best to describe the situation at Guantanamo Bay. Through the Platt Amendment1, the United States gained control of this soon territory. Ever since, it has been in use for excessive capture and torture of terrorists and the “worst of the worst” (Braven 1) dealing with international affairs. The facility receives international, unwanted attention due to the violation and lack of human rights and due process of law.
Following 9/11, there was a steady increase in detention without charge, which violated the concept of the right to a fair trial, long considered to be a fundamental human right and enshrined in American law. When the United States government introduced a preventative detention program, 1182 people were detained in the first seven weeks of the program alone and around 5000 people, mainly Muslims or Arabs, have been detained in total. The majority of those detained were held on vague anonymous accusations, few faced any charges, and the vast majority were never convicted of a crime. The existence of Guantanamo Bay, which serves as a focal point for this essay, poses a particular threat to the right to a fair trial, as those detained are
In 2003 the US military relied on the confession taken from Sheikh al-Libi in which it was claimed that Iraq supplied both chemical and biological weapons to Al Qaeda. This testimony was used in the month leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Later al-Libi retracted his statement saying that he did so in order to make the torture stop. This is a clear example of the ineffectiveness of torture and the bad consequences it can often produce. The CIA had forgotten its own conclusion, sent to congress in 1989, that ‘inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers.’
