Last Thursday, President Barack Obama decided to absolve a group of Central Intelligence Agency members for their supposed crimes while interrogating terror suspects.
As such, there has been quite a political backlash from human rights activists and antitorture groups who say that this is nothing less than treason against the U.N. Convention against torture, to which the U.S. has indeed pledged itself. With such an outcry, many are left wondering if Obama made the right call. My answer is a firm yes.
The first thing to understand is we, as a free and democratic nation, should not condone the use of torture in any case. Such methods are cruel and outdated.
Torture is a trade best left to our history books as a tool of the past.
While we seemed to have been a little lax on our torture policy in the Bush years, America has a long-standing reputation, or at least we did, of treating our war prisoners with the dignity and respect of any person who is fighting for what they believe to be right.
But what went wrong? Why did things like Guantanamo Bay happen? It is because we crossed the line between torture and acceptable methods of coercion.
This is a foggy issue, though.
While I think torture begins at the point where someone starts to endure extreme pain, you might think that it begins by leaving someone in a cell without a bed or blanket.
The existence of such varying opinions thus makes defining torture a daunting task.
In its statement on torture, the U.N. defines torture as an “act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession.”
This seems like a good enough definition, but when it gets down to it, it sets no real ground line at all. It does leave it up to popular opinion and man’s own morals to decide what will be considered an act of torture and what won’t.
The CIA agents had supposedly done such things as keep suspects in cold cells for long intervals of time, feed them liquid foods instead of solid, and keep them shackled for extended periods of time.
While many people would consider these practices cruel and unusual, I think these are perfectly plausible solutions to the formidable task of extracting information from terrorist suspects. These agents put their lives on the line every day to protect our lives here in the U.S.
These people had acted, not out of maliciousness or belligerence, but out of a sense of duty to their own country. While some might consider what they did torture, others do not.
As Obama said, now is time for
reflection, not retribution.
-Carson Painter is an international business and finance sophomore.
The Oklahoma Daily is pleased to provide you the opportunity to share your thoughts about this article. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or straying from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of OUDaily.com. Thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register
Flips88 3 years, 1 month ago
Here's a video of journalist Christopher Hitchens voluntarily getting waterboarded to ascertain whether it is torture or not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubU...
He decided it very clearly was.
Imagine having this done to you more than 180 times in one month. Sound unimaginable? Well, that's what the CIA did to Khalid Sheik Muhammed.
RogerG 3 years, 1 month ago
CIA and US military forces have tortured people by the wholesale since Vietnam. US supported tyrannies like Augustino Pinochet the Catholic dictator of Chile for decades. Toture is sometimes necessary and at times it is not needed because it is done by perverts such as what happened at Abu Graib. But are we willing to say it is ok for Iran to torture American spies or Taleban to torture US troops too? why not? That is why a person like McCain who was tortured is against it.
JJanowiak 3 years, 1 month ago
Ignorance, ignorance. The CIA hasn't "supposedly" tortured people - they HAVE tortured people. It is documented fact. You're betraying a disgusting mindset by equivocating about whether what the CIA did constitutes torture, because it obviously does. Why do you think otherwise? Because you're some international business sophomore who hasn't read anything about the issue (or do you have that dogeared IRCR report laying around somewhere?). It's always wonderful to hear the opinions of random uninvolved people about "what constitutes torture". People should have learned when Christopher Hitchens made a fool of himself on the waterboarding question and gave up in seconds. I have a proposal: how about we tie a ring around Carson's neck, slam him into some wooden boards, make him stand for days on end so he defacates all over himself, and see if his mind changes about torture?
Carson, like far, far too many people with comfy lives, wants to have it both ways: what the CIA did wasn't really torture, and what they did saved lives - maybe. Maybe it's time he woke up to reality, swallows the niceties of his pride, and acknowledges that he supports torture.
It's still a little to early to be coming to a determination about whether Obama is right or not because as much as Dick Cheney is a scumbag, he is right that we can't really know until all of the information is declassified. Obama is playing it safe politically which, as repugnant as the issue is, will be the best option. What's surprising is that some powerful democrats are asking him to wait on the pardons.
The big question here is: are all these pro-torture hawks willing to have completely inadmissible evidence when the country decides what it's going to do with all these people?
dwalker2006 3 years, 1 month ago
Flips88,
I am a conservative Republican, and I believe that the United States was wrong to use waterboarding as an interrogation technique. While I believe the motivations were sincere, the Bush administration made a tragic error when they adopted this policy.
I believe that we should not use these techniques because it tarnishes the good name of the United States of America and brings us down to the level of our enemies. Just because an act is just doesn't mean that we should carry out the act. I also think that most of these techniques are probably largely ineffective, though that proved not to be the case with Khalid Sheik Muhammed.
However, I do not share your bleeding heart compassion for Al Qaeda leadership that have been taken captive. My position is in no way due to empathy with the monster that is Khalid Sheik Muhammed. It pains me to see you even mention this name. Please never insult me by suggesting that as an intelligent human being I should ever lower myself to feel the slightest sense of compassion for this wretch. His comfort, dignity, and very life mean about as much to me as a piece of garbage. He is a man who made a premeditated, deliberate choice to design a terrorist attack with the hope of slaughtering as many innocent people in as violent a manner as possible. When he chose that path, he crossed a line.
This is a man who if he ever met you or I or JJanowiak would stomp on your face and saw your head off with is knife for no other reason than that you go to a different church. Yet, I can't help but get the impression that deep down inside people like you feel more derision for Dick Cheney and George Bush than you do Khalid Sheik Muhanmmed. Would your revulsion for waterboarding subside if it were Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld strapped down on the table? I wonder if a part of you wouldn't enjoy watching Mr. Cheney being waterboarded.
Khalid Sheik Muhammed deserves far worse than he will ever receive in this life. No, it does not sound unimaginable to me that he was waterboarded 180 times in a month. I believe that he fully deserves to be waterboarded 180 a day for the rest of his life. However, we should be better than that. There is justice and then there is mercy. We don't show mercy for the benefit of the guilty. We show mercy for our own benefit.
kdbp1213 3 years, 1 month ago
i live in the real world. it's simple, folks. you don't wanna be tortured or punished? don't do anything that warrants torture or punishment. torture is gonna happen whether we know it or not............
DrFuego 3 years, 1 month ago
"don't do anything that warrants torture or punishment." - kdbp1213
Worst. Advice. Ever.
You do realize that Muslim faithful donating to a religious charity suddenly found themselves as terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, right?
You do realize that fake tips and clerical errors have lead to DEA raids of innocent civilians, holding them in custody for hours while searching their houses, and often times murdering household pets, right?
You do realize that the wrong change in the laws and attitudes of a nation could put you askew of the law for a reason that seems arbitrary to you, right?
kdbp, you obviously do NOT live in the real world if you think that your own behavior can keep you out of trouble. Hate to break it to you, but even sharing the same name as someone else can be enough to get you in trouble, especially if a clerk somewhere mixes up the paperwork. You can't simply condone "enhanced interrogation" by saying that the victims obviously deserved it, especially when the innocent get mixed in with the guilty.
Even though people keep saying it doesn't apply outside the borders of the USA, the eighth amendment seems to me to refer to a pretty fundamental human right. You don't have to torture someone to get information; you don't have to torture someone to exact punishment.
Therefore, there is no reason to condone torture. Ever.