S. intelligence community over the past half century" (McCoy, 2006, p
Government and covert operations conducted by the government. He researched and wrote this book after seeing news accounts of the torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, however, the author had been researching CIA torture in various forms since 1986 (Wolff, 2006)
S., a democratic nation that has not hitherto been known to torture prisoners - know much at all about torture in the first place? According to an interview article in the online version of the Atlantic, Bowden is quoted as asking the question, "Is it morally right to protect a terrorist from torture if 'we pay for his silence in blood?" (Dryer, 2003)
In 1956, Anscombe took offense to the suggestion that Oxford University should bestow an honorary degree on President Harry Truman. She along with others "opposed this because of his responsibility for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (O'Grady 2001)
" And yet, Bush threatens to veto legislation from Congress that would ban torture, which puzzles Thomas. "The president has threatened to veto a legislative ban on waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques that are tantamount to torture" (Thomas, 2008)
The thousands of people mentioned earlier would be the ones that would be in the ticking bomb case presented. (Dershowitz, 2002) A case was presented of Zacarias Moussaoui who was suspected to be talking very suspiciously and was reported to take lesions by paying a lot of money
If there are people who are willing to get themselves killed, may be they have an extremely high threshold for enduring pain. It was argued that what if the torture that is allowed to question terrorists included acts that include their loved ones, their family and their innocent children? (Drogin & Miller, 2001) Many a time's men are involved in activities that their wire and children don't have a clue about
However, he did agree that torture was something that would eventually lead to death. (Langbein, 1977) This notion therefore could be built up on the fact that in some instances, torture is not only recommended but is the only decent option
Most modern philosophy does. It is based on the idea that man can reshape reality as he sees fit: it disregards the concept of the "suprapersonal" (Weaver 15)
In conclusion, the Utilitarian associates moral correctness with his own happiness and thus links morality to control -- subjectively so, so that his standpoint can shift as he sees fit. As Dershowitz states, "It seems logical that a formal, visible, accountable, and centralized system is somewhat easier to control than an ad hoc, off-the-books, and under-the-radar-screen nonsystem" (Dershowitz 303)
Because his philosophy is based on the subjective philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who also called into question the idea that man could measure himself against an external, objective and transcendental moral law, the Utilitarian is able to examine the facts in as many different lights as he can justifiably arrange. For example, Mill writes that "if [society] issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression" (Mill 13)
S.-run detention centers, most of them not publicly known (Croke 2004)
And the Occupying Power shall not move parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies (Goldsmith). The Global Stand against Torture Article 5 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international and regional human rights treaties prohibit torture (Foley 2009)
3(a)(1), amending § 948b (f), 948b (g). Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention This article protects civilians during war (Goldsmith 2004)
Redefining and Justifying Torture In its August 2002 to the White House, the Justice Department, through Attorney- General Jay S. Bybee, expressed the opinion that torturing al-Qaeda captives abroad may be justified in the war against terrorism (Priest & Smith 2004)
The Akai Pharmaceutical Company compound, the Palace of Conferences across the al-Rasheed hotel, the Scania transportation depot and the al-Sijood Palace in Baghad were also converted into detention centers (Croke). "Totally Out of Hand" The United Nations' special investigator on torture reported that the torture situation in Iraq may now be worse than during the regime of deposed leader Saddam Hussein (Regan 2006)
S. LEXIS 4867, the Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the Military Commissions' blocking federal courts from hearing the claims of Guantanamo detainees (Supreme Court of the United States 2008)
Put simply, the United States has tortured thousands, if not millions of people in its history, and continues to torture thousands more at this very moment. This is because, in addition to soldiers who "forced prisoners to strip naked, leashed them, and made them crawl like animals" in military prisons, and CIA interrogators who waterboarded a wide variety of terrorist suspects, at any given time the United States is holding thousands of individuals in solitary confinement, which is definitely torture according to the United Nations' definition and is most likely torture according to any other reasonable definition of the word (Angell, 2005, p
Other texts define it slightly differently -- for example, including the stipulation that the victim must fear for his or her life -- but the United Nations' definition is useful for this study for two reasons. Firstly, it begins by defining torture as pain or suffering inflicted with the express purpose of extracting information, which is precisely the context in which the United States has used and attempted to justify torture (Annas, 2005, p
When considered along these lines, it becomes clear that torture is not permissible within utilitarian ethics for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it does not provide accurate information, so there is no reason to believe that the information gleaned from torture in a ticking-clock scenario would actually prevent the deaths of others (Arrigo, 2004, p