At 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001 an American Boeing 767 plane collided with the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Eighteen minutes later another Boeing 767 hit the south tower (CNN). 2,753 people were killed in the initial attack alone, with many others injured or grieving for lost loved ones. It was an attack that shocked the nation, the ripples of which still echo today. In response, then president George W. Bush declared a “war on terror”. Sixteen years later and America is still feeling the rippling effects of both 9/11 and the subsequent war, and from those ripples sprung controversies. Most notably the detention and extraction of information from who was deemed to be “enemy combatants”. Though the methods of extraction …show more content…
We believe we are more advanced, not only technologically but also morally. Tools of torture from history like the brazen bull, Judas cradle and possibly most famously the rack are seen as barbaric. And yet history repeats itself. Torture has been rebranded as “enhanced interrogation” and continued under the guise of fighting the “war on terror”. One may believe that waterboarding is different than tying a person to a wooden frame and turning a crank until the subject’s joints dislocate or tear. Perhaps in modernized torture the tools look less horrific but they are equally as barbaric. They leave less physical marks but damage the psyche. Bruises and broken bones heal, but often the mind cannot. In fact, modernized torture is designed in this way. Some notable methods of modern torture specifically inflicted by the United States include waterboarding. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that simulates drowning by pouring water onto a cloth draped over the face of a restrained victim. Waterboarding is perhaps the most famous torture method but not the only one. According to The Guardian other methods were used such as forced rectal feeding. Rectal feeding was touted as medically necessary in times of hunger strikes however putting pureed food into a victims rectum does little to give them nutrition. Another method entails placing the detainee inside a “confined box to restrict their movement” (Laughland). The box would most likely feel like a coffin and could restrict breathing. Cold water was also an approved torture method as well as sleep deprivation and stress positions. The methods listed above are only the ones that are approved and sanctioned by the Bush regime. There was countless other incidents of horrific unsanctioned methods being used in prisons like Abu Ghraib. Major General Antonio M. Taguba in an article for the New Yorker listed off methods of abuse and torture. Those listed