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The Pros And Cons Of Waterboarding

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According to Cambridge English Dictionary waterboarding is “a form of torture in which a person is held facing upwards while water is poured in large quantities over his face. This gives the person the feeling that he is drowning.” “The torture of water” has widely been used as an interrogation technique since the Spanish Inquisition. Several variations of waterboarding can be found in the history of torture, but, all of them are characterized with the same feature – to evoke sensation of drowning leading to suffocation. Waterboarding has extensively been recognized as a form of torture, but, does it really amount to torture? The CAT defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.” Does waterboarding cause physical pain or suffering sufficiently severe in order to be categorized as torture? The greatest number of human rights scholars and activists are of the view that physical and psychological pain caused by waterboarding is indeed enough to call it torture. Being against the limiting of the definition of torture, they note that “deep …show more content…

Medical experts suggest that waterboarding can result in hypoxia, tachycardia, arrhythmia, neurological damages and with regard to physiological harm it can cause panic attacks, high levels of depression and prolonged stress disorders. Examinations suggest that the terror of immediate death caused by simulated drowning leads to the long-term health consequences and specialists concur in the view that pain and suffering of waterboarding “unquestionably” meet the legal definition of torture. Hence, it can be deduced that according to medical findings, severity level of physical and psychological pain of waterboarding definitely meet the minimum standard set by the European Court of Human

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Mahatma Gandhi, the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement states “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” This is important because torture is brutal on the body and mind. The article “Torture’s Terrible Toll” by John McCain is more convincing then the article “The Case for Torture” by Michael Levin because McCain provides more logical reasoning, he adds his own personal experience of being a captured prisoner during the Vietnam War, and he creates an emotional bond with people around the world. Through more logical reasoning McCain Argument is more valid than Levin.

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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.

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In the case that there is sufficient evidence of guilt as well as coconspirators, torture may be allowed but none that is inhumane. Document B: The Massachusetts Body of Liberties allows torture in the case that somebody is deemed guilty by clear evidence. In the Laws of Connecticut Colony, no torture is allowed whatsoever. Document C: Mather advises judges to continue the regular American method of obtaining confessions and to abstain from torture, for confusion is more likely to get a confession than torture. Document D: Henry warns that Congress will attempt to extort confession by practicing torture.

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In Christopher Hitchens, “Believe Me, Its Torture”, Hitchens describes his experience with waterboarding with the purpose of convincing society that this practice is indeed a torturous punishment. The maltreatment practice of “waterboarding” has been controversial for many years; therefore, in order to convince the audience that waterboarding is torturous, Christopher Hitchens undergoes this practice not only once, but twice. The author uses his personal experience to illustrate the mental, physical, and emotional stress he goes through during the process. In Christopher Hitchens, “Believe Me, Its Torture”, Hitchens effectively uses pathos and logos as well as many different rhetorical strategies to persuade society that waterboarding is not acceptable; that it is cruel and unusual punishment.

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971 Words | 4 Pages

In Michael Levin's The Case for Torture, Levin provides an argument in which he discusses the significance of inflicting torture to perpetrators as a way of punishment. In his argument, he dispenses a critical approach into what he believes justifies torture in certain situations. Torture is assumed to be banned in our culture and the thought of it takes society back to the brutal ages. He argues that societies that are enlightened reject torture and the authoritative figure that engage in its application risk the displeasure of the United States. In his perspective, he provides instances in which wrongdoers put the lives of innocent people at risk and discusses the aspect of death and idealism.

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This is for sure going against the article number 5 in the universal declaration, “Nobody has any right to hurt us or to torture us”. As human beings if we have done nothing wrong even if we did anything wrong we have no right to be physically abused. Another example is when Elie Wiesels father states when Elie asked if he had eaten, “They didn’t give us anything… they said that we were sick, that we would die soon, and that it would be a waste of food” (Wiesel 107). This proves that the physical cruel treatment is happening to human rights because they are not being fed when they do not

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While analyzing “The Torture Myth” and “The Case for Torture”, it is very clear to see the type of rhetorical appeals used to persuade the audience. Anne Applebaum, the writer of “The Torture Myth” --in context of the decision of electing a new Attorney General--would argue that torture is very seldomly effective, violates a person’s rights, and should be outlawed due to the irrational need upon which physical torture is used. On the other hand, Michael Levin strongly argues that physical torture is crucial to solving every imminent danger to civilians. Levin claims that if you don’t physically torture someone, you are being weak and want to allow innocent people to die over something that could have been simply done.

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About two years ago, a C.I.A. torture report was released, the subject on detainees captured after September 11, who were suspected to be linked to the attack. One of the more famous detainees, Majid Khan, who had been afflicted with Al Qaeda, was captured in 2003 and was held at Guantanamo Bay since 2006. He says that the interrogators waterboarded him twice, was moved among series of C.I.A. operated “black sites” over some months, and the torture still continued. He was beaten repeatedly, hung from a wooden beam for three days, and shackled and starved. He was even submerged in an ice bath, the transparent ice burning his skin like fire, slowly numbing his body.

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In medieval times, torture was used to punish criminals, deter crime, and gather information. There were many different types of tortures, most of which were brutal and painful. At the time, torture was deemed necessary to maintain order. Laws were harsh and torture was severe, but effective form of punishment. Despite its effectiveness, torture was often an unfair and extremely cruel punishment, and should have been eliminated in all forms.

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Thus, it is a type of torture that the government uses to get information from terrorists. This means the CIA is using physical and mental torture to get the information. There are thirteen enhanced interrogation techniques, but the CIA uses four of them most of the time. The first is waterboarding, which is when agents tie a detainee to a bench and then pour water on his or her face. The second technique is sleep deprivation, which is when the detainee is kept awake standing up or in a painful position for 100–180 hours.

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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.

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As this article mentions many people do believe that torture works as nobody could resist the physical and mental torture people are put through. In reality most successful cases have been done by psychology experts using other methods. They used human knowledge and applied it to the interrogation. Moskalenko, Sophia. " Great Minds Think Alike: Psychology Of An Effective Interrogation."

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Throughout this article the author touches on the “enhanced interrogation” form called waterboarding. Waterboarding is when a victim is placed on a board that is slightly raised higher at the victim’s feet than it is at the victims head and involves towels being placed on a victim’s face and large amounts of water to be poured on the face of a victim in order to make breathing extremely difficult. The author states in the article, “You may have heard by now the official lie about this treatment which is that it “simulates” drowning, this is not the case you feel like you are drowning because you are actually drowning.” (Hitchens 9) This excerpt from the article stands to illustrate to the reader just how barbaric waterboarding is being as though it involves drowning someone in order to get information for personal gratification.

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Torture is universally prohibited in both national and International law worldwide. It is a fundamental violation of human rights that cannot be derogated from. Essentially, torture is said to constitute any physical and mental act by which severe pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted upon a person ( UNCAT).Torture is mainly used for purposes that are set out to degraded, embarrass, and induce destruction in the person being subjected to torture and those in close relation to the person being tortured .Torture is a mechanism used by those in authoritative positions to preserve themselves in power (Power, 2006:2). Despite the universal prohibition on torture, its use has been widespread throughout history, and especially of late in the wake of September 11 2001 and other recent terrorist atrocities to combat the aforementioned heinous terrorist attacks.

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1005 Words | 5 Pages

He is stating that torture should be allowed with rules instead of just torturing somebody to the extreme for some information. In the text it says, " We know, for example, if Sheikh Khalid Mohammed, a very high value detainee, was subjected to waterboarding. That is, he was placed on a board, his head was put into the water, near drowning experiences were inflicted on

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