To Torture Or Not

Case Study Critical Analysis Essay on Torture

There has been captured a man believed to be responsible for information, or has a bomb with a substantial capacity to cause damage and casualties. The authorities have exhausted all their efforts in trying to obtain a declaration of the man with the location of the bomb but they were unsuccessful and with only 90 minutes remaining, for the timethe man said the explosion will take place. Someone suggests using torture to force him to talk.

Given this scenario, would I agree with the use of torture with the aim of exerting maximum pressure, or at least all the necessary information?

In such cases it is very likely to thoughtless decisions, as it is very easy to get carried away by feelings. What do we have in the scale? At firstglance some injuries to the tortured versus the life of many people. If we lay there, the answer is easy: the justification, but the picture changes when analyzed deeply.

I begin by saying that I disagree with the use of torture even in extraordinary cases. Torture is an international crime and is prohibited in the International Covenant for Civil Rights in Article 7:
"No one shall be subject totorture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In particular, no one shall be subjected or degraded. In particular, no one shall be subject without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation. "

This means that unlike other human rights regulation, there is no justification to support torture, even in exceptional situations.

Torture, more than suitable to achieve efficientresults, seems to pursue the humiliation and punishment of the tortured. However, this form of punishment, besides being degrading and inhuman, and therefore, totally illegitimate, torture violates human dignity. Torture destroys the human condition essence, keeping him/her from the basic human rights. In other words, it is not that someone has to suffer something that does not want, but someoneis subject to treatment that appears as completely indifferent to the fact that he is capable of will. Torture eliminates will, and even does so completely, so that one who is tortured on behalf of which the State cannot talk anymore.

This is just one reason why we do not support this type of method. I think the information obtained with the implementation of torture can only lead toinaccuracies, since it is based on the fear factor. The tortured, only give information that can stop the suffering, and if not aware of any data, you can get to invent anything to stop the torture. So it would be a big mistake to base an investigation on data obtained this way, since they would be useless. Despite, torture being in effect for decades and have ample opportunity to gather statistics, there isno scientific evidence to show that torture works.

My opinion is that torture is a poor and ineffective technique that generates unreliable results and may damage subsequent efforts to get information. The possible partial successes of torture are misleading, because ultimately it only engenders irreconcilable hatred, continuous and inevitable seed of further violence.

On the other hand, topermit or tolerate torture gives a guideline to the authorities responsible for security (army, police, etc...) to use a resource that will always be easier to implement than other criminological and intelligence resources alternative to torture. In summary, for authorities is always easier to employ torture rather than other research method. And, I think that should not be allowed, since theconsequences of torture are permanent, whether psychological or physical and frankly to lead a person to his strength limit, is not reliable.

Once you open that box of Pandora, we would have to put into perspective the following: should we torture a person who didn’t placed the bomb but they happen to know the location and will not cooperate, to save thousands?, Or, the mother of the terrorist...