America has a history of torturing terrorists. Whether it be in the very controversial
Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq, or in the infamous Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Tactics used range anywhere from
waterboarding to physical abuse in order to try and get answers out of the
suspected terrorists held at these awful prisons. The moral question of this issue is whether
or not the torture enacted upon suspected terrorists is ever justifiable.
The moral arguments with the torture of terrorists is
whether it is worth torturing one person in order to hypothetically save 1000
other people. The specific terrorist
action had not happened yet so there is no proof that there was even any good
done by torturing the terrorist. The
torturing of people violates the Geneva Convention signed in 1949. There are specific clauses in Article 3 of
the Geneva Convention that directly say that torture is a direct violation of
human rights and the humane treatment of prisoners. The American government believes that torture
has helped them acquire information to help stop terroristic threats and
actions. The cons against torture are that
it violates human rights, terrorists often will lie to help the torture stop,
and torture has never proven to be more effective than other ways of getting
answers from the terrorists.
There have been many famous cases of the overreach of
American power by using inhumane torture and awful methods to try and get
answers. The most famous case was in the
Iraqi-prison Abu-Ghraib where the prison guards used horrible techniques such
as sexual abuse and physical beatings to try and break the prisoners into
talking. After the awful doings at
Abu-Ghraib were uncovered, only two low-level prison guards that were caught in
many pictures were actually arrested for their actions. Other horrible torture techniques were used
on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
This is the offshore prison that the American government used to hold
suspected terrorists in order to not have to give them rights given to typical
U.S. citizens.
The torture of terrorists is a huge moral issue that must be
looked at by the U.S. government and human rights organization. No human should be treated like animals, no
matter the circumstances.
