Why America and other countries should not Torture
- Reasons the Death Penalty should be abolished
First and foremost the death penalty is a barbaric act of murder. We teach our children very early on that two wrongs do not make a right. The crime of murder carries our harshest of sentences such is...
There has been a lot written in the last couple of years about torture. Especially the torture of detainees. detainees we are told are suspects in the war on terror. Yet despite six years in Detention most if not almost all of the detainees have yet to be charged with any criminal or military offence. Why is that ?
During World war 2 it was determined by American jurists that Japanese Water torture was that torture and yet here we are some 50 years later arguing whether or not water-boarding is torture...
One of the things we all hold as being true in a western democracy is the rule of law and the right to a fair trial. As well it has been proven for a very long time now that if you torture someone you will not extract the truth. Rather someone the recipient of the torture will tell you a story, any story in order to make the torture stop.
During the second world war & had a distant cousin who was held by the Japanese and was tortured. His job was to help build a road to the Burma Railway. During this times he was often sick malnourished and was tortured by the Japanese Guards. A guard would repeated use a truncheon on the top of his head if he as much glanced in the wrong direction.
After the war my cousin returned to England a broken man. He never recovered he repeatedly tried to take his own life untill eventually he was locked up permanently in a lunatic asylum.
Some of the proponent so far torture such as former Vice-President of the United States Dick Cheney have argued that torture works and that it has prevented Terrorist attacks we have we are told to take him at his word. Even though they were wrong so very wrong about Iraq possessions weapons of mass-destruction which posed an imminent anfd immediate threat to the United States.
There are a number of reasons other than moral ones why America should not torture. The first is that if Americans torture other non United States citizens then American soldiers serving overseas are themselves put at risk or being tortured or killed by those supporting the detainees that have been tortured. Secondly it is widely known that false confessions occur when you torture. Amnesty International and the International Red Cross have pointed this out to the United States authorities. Thirdly in fighting the war on terror torturing will have the very opposite desired effect. Torture will be used as a recruitment tool against the United States by those recruiting and seeking sympathy for Terrorist organisations and the like.
