Scholarship essay: Torture essays

Torture essays

We emphasized the mercilessness of all torture:. officials acknowledge waterboarding of three suspected terrorists; administration defends practice. Even for the crime of murder without torturethe infliction of many tortures are torture essays than the crime. Due process is built into the law to protect all, and deliberately so; Sung implies, torture essays, in fact, that the protections are likely in place to avert just such extreme eventualities. Investigative: On its face, torture would seem to have a valid tactical use in criminal investigations. References Angell, J. Torture has been a tool of coercion for nearly all of human history, whether to instill fear in a population or force people to convert, torture essays, but torture essays all contemporary attempts to justify the use of torture revolve around torture as a means of extracting information from a victim.

social class essays

Rodin forthcoming makes the significant additional point, however, that one can embrace an absolute prohibition against torture even if one does not believe that the right not to be tortured is absolute: the absolute prohibition does not presuppose an absolute right. Suppose, for example, that just as many people believe that the right not to be killed is not absolute and that one can forfeit it in at least some cases by killing someone else, the right not to be tortured aught also be thought not absolute and one could forfeit it by, say, torturing others. Suppose, that is, that one believed that torturing a torturer is not a violation of any right. Because they have forfeited that right, we are assuming for the sake of argument, we would not wrong them by torturing them especially, perhaps, if in accord with the usual narrative of the ticking-bomb scenario, we might possibly thereby obtain the information that would enable us to destroy a secret.

site where many other torturers are operating, thereby producing a net reduction in torture, etc. Even so, Rodin points out, one might still judge that although it would not wrong the guilty torturer, it would still be wrong — perhaps disastrously wrong — to engage in the torture because it is supremely important to maintain the moral firewall against torture. The function of the absolute moral prohibition against torture as an archetype of the fact that there are some activities in which civilized people do not engage is too important to allow a breach of the prohibition even if the degree of the wrongfulness of torturing the person in question were not reason enough in itself.

One is tempted to ask: how bad does it have to be before we torture? But, someone is bound to ask, is all this not too confident? Is it not conceivable that if we never torture anyone, we will sonic day pay a terrible price because we will fail to obtain the only information that would have enabled us to avoid a catastrophe: sonic monumental act of terrorism, for example? This is of course simply one more variant of the ticking-bomb scenario: this time there really is a bomb, and it is a really bad one, and we really will get the information in time, but only if we torture, and so on. Yes, if it is conceivable that if we torture enough people, we will find out something very important, then if we torture no one, we may not find it out, arid we may suffer the consequences.

Of course, there are all the usual questions about ticking bombs, such as whether we are simply to assume that our intelligence agencies — which did not foresee even monumental developments like the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Arab Spring, for example — are so good that they immediately have the person who knows most, or, if they have to blunder their way through a sequence of torture victims, each of whom leads them to the next, they will have time to reach the end of the trail. But 1 want to underline two quite different considerations. First, we have no empirical basis on which to believe that interrogational torture is the most effective form of interrogation Kleinman and n. If we torture no one, we may not find out something important — unless we have a better method than torture for finding it out!

Space here does not allow a thorough discussion of issues about effectiveness, and I obviously do not believe that torture would be justified if it were effective. But it surely could be justified only if it were the most effective alternative, given how wrong everyone on all sides admits torture is. A priori it is difficult to understand how the CIA paradigm in particular can be a good method of gathering accurate information. The person whose personality structure is undermined and who is made to regress to an infantile state of wanting to please certainly will be inclined to give the interrogator what the torture victim thinks the interrogator wants. But is this a reliable method of quickly gathering accurate information?

It partly depends on how often a person tortured simply does not have the information that he thinks the interrogator wants; in those cases the victim is likely to manufacture something in order to try to please the interrogator. Amery, under SS torture, tried hard to comply but could not because, like any member of a moderately well-run underground, he had been allowed to know only the aliases of his colleagues:. What they wanted to hear from me in Breendonk [Prison], 1 simply did not know myself. If instead of the aliases I had been able to name the real names, perhaps, or probably, a calamity would have occurred, and I would be standing here now as the weakling I most likely am, and as the traitor I potentially already was.

Yet it was not at all that I opposed them with the heroically maintained silence that befits a real man in such a situation … I talked. Amery And even if torture does obtain correct information at some stage, it may well be less efficient than other approaches to interrogation. This is certainly the view of a number of experienced American interrogators. So, is Alexander interrogating with kindness? Far from it: the hope he gives is false hope. He pretends, and tricks, and lies to his prisoners, treating them in ways that in almost any other circumstances would be clearly immoral:. The best interrogators are outstanding actors.

Once they hit that booth, their personalities are transformed. They … allow a doppelganger to emerge. What doppelganger is most likely to elicit information from a detainee changes from prisoner to prisoner. Sometimes I must have a wife or children so I can swap stories with the prisoner, though I have neither. The interrogation that Alexander practises does not make a pretty picture. He coercively manipulates his prisoners. They are not treated as ends: they are used instrumentally to obtain information. Some people will certainly feel that it is morally wrong ever to treat people like this. But it is not torture. No severe pain or suffering, physical or Mental, is inflicted on prisoners. The struggle is a battle of wits. He is treated as an enemy and outwitted if possible.

But the soundness of neither his body nor his mind is undermined. Of course, the testimony of a single interrogator does not settle which interrogation technique is more effective, torture or something else. I claim only to have illustrated through anecdotal evidence that a serious, smart and successful American interrogator, who personally has conducted three hundred interrogations and supervised more than a thousand, and who was awarded the Bronze Star for service in Iraq, believes that alternatives to torture are more effective. All the fabulously expensive CIA research established that people can be broken and made to regress, not that they can be made to reveal timely information, even when they know something relevant.

The second point is this. Suppose Alexander is mistaken and was just lucky with Abu Musab al Zarqawi and others, but we have believed him and returned to the legally required refusal to use torture. Consequently, we fail to find out about a danger that we cannot otherwise prevent, and some of us die as a result. He studied at Merton from as a Rhodes Scholar. His research has focused on the role of human rights, especially economic rights, in international affairs and, more generally, on institutions to protect the vulnerable. This not only is not accidental, it is firm policy, in the case of the CIA paradigm. REVIVING THE TORTURE RATIONALE [email protected] , March 17, WORLD: The trial of a Khmer Rouge torturer — In the latest issue of Torture Magazine [email protected] , September 30, The Lost Cause [email protected] , August 28, SRI LANKA: A Cruel Government Supports Torture by Opposing Preventive Law [email protected] , July 19, SRI LANKA: Resuming the death sentence in order to divert public attention [email protected] , June 27, नेपालः यातनाविरुद्धको अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय दिवसको सन्दर्भमा यातनाः न्यायका लागि पहलको दोस्रो संस्करण प्रकाशन [email protected] , June 27, MAKING TORTURE OKAY AGAIN [email protected] , March 17, TORTURE IN THE AGE OF TRUMP [email protected] , March 17, WORLD: Torture: Asian and Global Perspectives: Online Reader Survey [email protected] , April 13, Martin-Baro: A Liberator [email protected] , October 25, SAY IT LOUD AND CLEAR [email protected] , June 26, Dystopia [email protected] , October 31, Healing the Wounds [email protected] , March 17, Book Review: Let the Good Prevail [email protected] , October 31, Leningrad, Shostakovich and the Music of Transcendence [email protected] , March 17, A TRIBUTE TO LATE — SIR NIGEL RODLEY [email protected] , March 20, The politics of pain: torturers and their masters.

Boulder, Colo: Westview Press. This last category includes the infamous waterboarding technique, which has -- in subsequent evaluations -- been labeled illegal torture. An important consideration in the evaluation of these techniques has been the additive impact of combining techniques to achieve an enabling condition or objective. In other words, in its memo to John izzo, the Acting General Counsel of the C. Justice Department specifically prohibited some combinations of techniques and specifically permitted other combinations. Justice Department issued radical memos supporting or opposing the standard imposed by Congress for identifying torture. The harsh interpretation in asserted that the techniques used by the C.

were not "cruel, inhuman or degrading," and so could not be considered to be torture. How would you validate the information received from a suspect that was deprived…. References Greene, C. And Banks, L. Ethical guideline evolution in psychological support to interrogations operations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 61 1 , Mazzetti, M. And Shane, S. Interrogation memos detail harsh tactics by the C. The New York Times. hp [Type text]. Undoubtedly, this association is partially explained by his postwar notoriety, but the ubiquitous image of Mengele at the ramp in so many survivors' accounts has also to do with the fact that Mengele often appeared "off-duty" in the selection area whenever trainloads of new prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, searching for twins.

From witness accounts, Mengele would even inject the children with diseases, which often provoked vomiting and diarrhea, or would subject them to cuts while strapped to a table. Because of his firsthand experimentation and selection of many prisoners, Mengele is responsible for countless numbers of deaths. Furthermore, due to his orders, others were either tortured, maimed, or killed…. Works Cited: Evans, Nick. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. Encyclopedia Britannica. In other words, up until the middle of the 19th century, there were no cases of note or significance that indicated that the executive branch of the UNITED STATES government had the authority to render suspects or criminals to foreign locations outside of the explicit authority granted through a signed treaty with a foreign government.

It was during the Civil War that the first major break with this established legal tradition was made. The incident involved the capture of a foreign citizen in New York City during wartime and performed by presidential authority alone. The man captured was Jose Augustin Arguelles, a Spanish subject, who captured illegal slave traders, claimed a reward, then sold the slaves to plantation owners. Under Spanish law he was a criminal, but the United States had no extradition treaty with Spain. Despite having no legal authority to do so, Lincoln authorized the capture of the…. References Elsea, J. And Kim, J. Undisclosed UNITED STATES detention sites overseas: background and legal issues. CRS Report for Congress.

Congressional Research Service. pdf Grey, S. Torture's tipping point. New Statesman, pp. Grey, S. Missing presumed tortured. Gutierrez, D. The extraordinary cruelty of "extraordinary rendition. A d the theoretical approach to legal reasoning that casts the most helpful light on judicial reasoning in determining whether or not evidence derived from torture should be admissible is legal positivism, as developed by H. Hart's approach to legal positivism focused strongly on the relationship between the law and morality. One would be hard pressed to describe an area where the relationship between moral behavior and the law is more at issue than in a question involving torture. The question is especially salient when a country may not have any influence over interrogation procedures, such as when the United Kingdom is relying upon interrogations performed in other countries.

However, Hart's rule of recognition articulates the point-of-view that social norms should not always be legal norms. There is no question that the prohibition against torture is a widespread social norm, as reflected by the common law, informal international law,…. They point out that if a suspected terrorist gets on a plane and gets off at a place like Copenhagen or Toronto and demands asylum, even if he is not granted asylum, he's pretty much got a safe haven to operate in because he can' be deported or extradited back to where ever he came from. They believe that such lenient 'European' laws create a huge gap in security, which need to be tightened and that human rights conventions such as the Convention Against Torture make it almost impossible for states to gain a reasonable and necessary degree of assurance against devastating attacks in an age of asymmetrical warfare against international terrorists.

Former U. officials such as Michael Scheuer, who helped to set up the CIA's rendition program during the Clinton administration, are more forthcoming about commenting on the nature and existence of 'extraordinary' renditions. Scheuer has in different statements…. Works Cited Begg, Moazzam. Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance. April 5, html Charter, David. November 29, February 5, ece Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Finally, torture is the best means to try to get this information from the suspect McCoy, Taken as a whole, these circumstances are so unlikely to occur that, even if the ticking bomb scenario would justify the use of torture, it has not ever occurred and, therefore, cannot be used to justify torture.

In fact, what many people who advocate in favor of torture fail to acknowledge is that while torture may be guaranteed to elicit information from even the most reticent of subjects, there is no reason to believe that torture will elicit truthful information. The theory behind torture is that, with the application of sufficient pain and fear, people will talk, and that does appear to be true in the vast majority of cases. However, it is more important to wonder what they will say than whether they will talk. References Armbruster, B. Obama's successful counterterror strategy. Torture, terrorism, and the state: A refutation of the Ticking-Bomb argument. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 23 3 , Gathii, J. Torture, extra-territoriality, terrorism, and international law. Albany Law Review, 67, Retrieved March 19, from:.

According to Kant, men cannot be used as a means to an end, even to achieve a positive action for a greater number of men and women: "For he whom I propose by such a promise to use for my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting towards him and, therefore, cannot himself contain the end of this action. This violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more obvious if we take in examples of attacks on the freedom and property of others. For then it is clear that he who transgresses the rights of men intends to use the person of others merely as a means, without considering that as rational beings they ought always to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as beings who must be capable of containing in themselves the end of the very same action.

This is because, most suspects will more than likely only begin talking after they have been subject to extreme amounts of pressure. Evidence of this can be seen with Danner writing, "American officials acknowledged that such techniques were recently applied as a part of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the highest ranking Al Qaeda operative in custody until the capture of Mr. Painkillers were withheld from Zubaydah, who was shot several times during his capture in Pakistan. However, during the process of obtaining this information is when they will have to use different tactics that will place physical and emotional pressure on the terrorist.

This is when they will begin to openly talking about future activities and plans. When you compare the…. Bibliography Danner, M. Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror. New York: New York Review of Books. Wanchekon, L. The Game of Torture. Journal of Conflict Resolution 43 5 : Geneva Conventions Enacted after the horrors of World War II demonstrated the limitations of earlier treaties, the Geneva Convention of have become one of the preeminent international standards dictating the behavior of combatants and the treatment of individuals in the context of international and other conflicts, to the point that it has become a part of generally accepted customary international law.

Building upon three earlier treaties signed in Geneva, the Convention of outlined rigorous standards defining and governing the treatment of civilian and military prisoners, the wounded, and civilians found in and around the war zone. Over the course of the last decade, the centrality of the Geneva Convention to international war and politics has come to the fore as a result of debates surrounding the relevance of the Convention to the United States execution of the War on Terror, especially in regards to the treatment and detainment….

References Senior u. officials acknowledge waterboarding of three suspected terrorists; administration defends practice. The American Journal of International Law, 2 , Bellamhy, A. Security and the war on terror. New York: Routledge. Bugnion, F. The geneva conventions of 12 august From the diplomatic conference to the dawn of the new millennium. International Affairs, 76 1 , Latin America In Ariel Dorman's play Death and the Maiden, Paulina has obviously been deeply traumatized by her experience of being tortured by former military regime of this Latin American country, and is definitely not prepared to peacefully coexist with those who committed atrocities against their own people.

Although the country is never named specifically, anyone familiar with the history would recognize it as Chile, which had been ruled by General Augusto Pinochet in Nowhere does the play mentioned that Pinochet was installed in a coup by the Central Intelligence Agency and supported by the United States government, or that the U. has continued to lie about these events up to the present. As part of the transition to democracy, also brokered by the U. government, the members of the former regime received an amnesty so that they could never be prosecuted. Paulina is one of the victims of…. Pinochet's Case is Not Yet Satisfying to Chilean and Human Rights Activists Although hampered by internal constraints and challenges, the nation of Chile stands poised to enter the 21st century as a major player in the world's international community.

On the one hand, the sound economic policies that were first implemented by the Pinochet dictatorship resulted in unprecedented growth in ; these policies have also helped secure the country's commitment to democratic and representative government. On the other hand, General Augusto Pinochet has been found guilty of the torture, disappearance, and murder of thousands of Chileans, including international citizens, but he has not yet been brought to justice. After Patricio Aylwin inaugurated a democratic presidency in , he continues to bring excuses for Pinochet's actions or exercises control to avoid facing justice.

Pinochet declared himself as Commander of Chief of the Army and afterwards, Senator for life in Chile. Works Cited Blakesley, Christopher. Ensalaco, Mark. Chile Under Pinochet: Recovering the Truth. Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, Facts on File. Multnomah County Library, Portland, Oregon. Hawkins, Darren. Also, the death penalty still in use in a great deal of countries might provide another subject for debate from the point-of-view of human rights. A minimalist set of human rights, meant only to keep people safe from humiliation and pain cannot be effective. This is mainly because while certain human rights seem to be of little necessity, they are actually indispensable. Economic, civil, and political rights are of great importance because they assist society's interests.

Human rights are not likely to have any decisive effect in international relationships, and they are also not expected to be of any use when it comes to the stopping perpetrators from breaking the law. The best thing to do in order to make the world a better place would be to promote the concept of good, so as to influence the masses into contributing to preserve human rights. orks cited: 1. Forsythe D. Works cited: 1. Foreign Policy and Human Rights in an Era of Insecurity," Wars on Terrorism and Iraq: Human Rights, Unilateralism, and U. Foreign Policy, ed. Thomas G. Weiss, Margaret E. Crahan, and John Goering. Ignatieff M. Appiah K. Gutmann a. Human rights as politics and idolatry. Princeton University Press.

Ramcharan B. A UN High Commissioner in Defence of Human Rights: "No License to Kill or Torture. CONADEP In , life changed dramatically in Argentina. On March 24, , a military coup took place. In an attempt to wipe out all dissenting opinion, they began a campaign of terror where thousands of people literally disappeared. The testimonies of the survivors of torture and kidnapping are brutal to read. The methods used to torture them; including electrical prods and live burials left lasting scars, both physical and mental on these survivors. The patterns in these testimonies are all the same. The torturers were sadistic and brutal, and would stop at nothing to get the information they wanted.

They tortured loved ones in front of their family members, they took whole families from their homes, and they killed thousands with no remorse. The patterns are patterns of extreme violence, and the violence seems to stem from fear. They feared the recriminations of the left-wing dissidents, they feared their reaction…. Road to Guantanamo The docudrama, the Road to Guantanamo, the film by Matt Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom provided a unique look at the complexities and difficulties of enforcing international cooperation. This thrilling tale of the now famous "Tipton Three" British men of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin who, through a combination of poor decision-making and violations of international law, allows the viewer to examine these modern problems using the war on terrorism as a means of telling the story.

The purpose of this essay is to examine this film and highlight five separate violations of international cooperation using the articles of the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a guide and authority of the discussion. The first violation of international cooperation is evident at the beginning of the film. The film is taking place under the conditions at the beginning of the war on terror in…. Terrorists operate like spies and not like soldiers. For this reason, terrorists are not regarded as members of the combat concerning the conventions and treaties that ban torture. Therefore, it is normal for them to be given a different treatment when they are captured. This approach suggests that terrorists undertake actions that exclude them from protection from torture as indicated in treaties such as the Geneva Conventions Hall Their actions justify the argument that terrorists should not be given the legal protection normally given to other citizens on the foundation of law.

Moreover, terrorism has created the foundation of the global context that provides justification to the suspension of the rights of suspects. People who are suspected to assist terrorists or to be part of terrorism groups do not belong to humanity. Therefore, it is possible and necessary for them to be tortured if this is the only means…. Works Cited McCormack, Wayne. Understanding the Law of Terrorism. New York: Lexis Nexis, Print Hall, Simon. Peace and Freedom: The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements in the s. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, While the medical field agrees that prolonged suffering is not a desired product of medical care it has not yet reached the point of accepting that it is actually torture.

Making someone endure the fevers, the pain, and the physical maladies that come with many of the life ending diseases today is actually a form of torture. It makes a person suffer against their will and at the hands of someone else, in this case the medical community. More recently there have been strong arguments in courtrooms regarding Euthanasia and the right to choose to die now rather than later after…. The Humanist. Banality of Evil What is the relationship between the banality of evil and the ordinariness of goodness? Justas the 'banality of evil' was committed by apparently ' regular' ordinary' people who proceeded with the premise that their actions were acceptable based on their indoctrinations or cultural teachings as e.

By the third eich and, therefore, 'evil' lost its maliciousness and became ordinary, so too, as per David Blumenthal , goodness is also normalized and becomes banal through systems of social hierarchy, education, and childhood discipline that shape both good and evil attitudes and actions. How do both torturers and the tortured come to terms with their circumstances? Are their similarities between these processes? Torture not only causes pain to the body but can also cause associated damage and corruption to the psyche. The torturer, on the other hand, may not experience physical pain but will certainly experience the same damage….

References Blumenthal, D. Conroy, John, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture, Alfred A. Knopf, The United Nations Human Rights System. a Changes in APA Public Policy According to several changes made in APA Public policy with relation to the role of psychologists in the interrogations session, APA has prohibited its psychologists from taking part in the varied torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation techniques by stating, "No psychiatrist should participate directly in the interrogation of persons held in custody by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere.

Direct participation includes being present in the interrogation room, asking or suggesting questions, or advising authorities on the use of specific techniques of interrogation with particular detainees Pope, , Psychologists at the Center of the Controversy. Furthermore, since APA complies with United Nations definition of human rights, it can be implied that APA's definition of human rights includes universality and inalienability. The principle of universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law. This principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in , has been reiterated in numerous international human rights conventions, declarations, and resolutions UNHR, Hence, APA recognizes humans to have rights which cannot be taken away APA, Impact of U.

Policies on Detainees Where treaties like Geneva Convention and convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, prohibit any inhumane behavior resulting into physical and mental distress, there are no governing bodies to supervise the law and order agencies as an organization like APA has been. Even if the torture of these people would save lives it is a slippery slope that we do not want to begin. Once we allow the torture of suspects or terrorists it could begin a landslide witch-hunt in which people who are not terrorists and have not committed any crimes could be tortured based on suspect or circumstantial evidence.

While there is justified outrage at what happened in this country we, as Americans, must maintain our ethical standards at all times. It is only by maintaining these standards that we can hope to set and example worldwide about the strength and dignity of our nation and all that it stands for. The history of "just war" philosophy stems from religious and secular issues. One of the longest standing Just War traditions centers on religious differences including the differences between Muslim and Christian faiths. In addition the "Just War" theories support…. Guantanamo: A Complicated Issue Guantanamo Naval prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been a controversial topic among American citizens and politicians ever since information surfaced about detainees being held indefinitely without charge and possibly tortured while incarcerated there.

President Obama made it a key issue in his campaign, vowing to close it when he became president. He seemed to be making good on his promise in December of , when he signed an Executive Order demanding the transfer of remaining prisoners to other facilities or to foreign countries and the permanent closure of the prison camp. But as of , the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay remains open. There are several difficult issues that complicate Obama's ability to close "Gitmo," as it is sometimes called. Guantanamo does not have a good reputation among Americans, and it has an even worse reputation in other countries. One of the primary…. References Center for Constitutional Rights July Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

BBC News: U. And Canada. Amnesty International. high degree of misinformation I had received from traditional teachings about the church and the beginning of Christianity. Moreover, I was struck by the notion that most other people in the Western world receive this same degree of intentional misinformation, so much so that I have even heard people defend the idea that knowledge of the historical church is irrelevant to modern Christianity. Reading through the class material, I was struck by how critical this historical information was to the understanding of the actual church. One critical piece of information is the idea of Jesus as the head of the church, despite him not establishing Christianity as a separate religion.

Another critical idea was that prophets could play a continuing role in Christianity, when my traditional understanding had suggested that after Jesus there would be no more Jewish prophets. I also found myself wondering about the very obvious and significant…. River Runs Through Her: River Imagery and Symbolism in Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" Water symbolism, and especially that of the river, is integral to Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Rivers, with their winding waters, are not just part of the geographic landscape or the natural world. For Jacobs, rivers and all bodies of water have both practical and symbolic functions. The river forms a physical barrier between places; it divides states and physical locations. Rivers divide cites like Philadelphia and they provide natural borders between cities and states.

Rivers also help delineate the North and the South, which in Jacobs' time was eminently significant. Therefore, the river is a metaphorical barrier between slavery and freedom. The oppressive plantations of the south are separated from the Free States in the north by these flowing bodies of water. In Harriet Jacobs'…. In the words of BBC Middle East analyst Gerald Butt , "…his Saddam's opponents have not been able to nominate anyone else who might hold Iraq together -- with its Kurds in the north, Sunni Muslims in the centre [sic], and Shi'a in the south. What the outside world calls terror, Saddam calls expediency. And Britain, are still actually taking an active role in Saddam's political decision-making, albeit the latter has chosen to contain himself within Iraq's borders.

leadership continued to tolerate Saddam's regime, only until the point that it is able to find a 'suitable' replacement for the dictator Dickey and Thomas, In addition to "covert actions" taken to secure that Iraq…. References Butt, G. January stm Dickey, C. And E. September helped create Saddam Hussein. html O'Reilly, B. Paz, M. And J. Fran It is difficult to discern what the most egregious act of injustice was during the criminal case involving Frank Jude and the police department of Milwaukee, isconsin. The brutal beating the young man incurred, which clearly transgressed the line from a mere drubbing to wanton, pernicious acts of torture, would appear to lead the unspeakable travesty that would befall him in the months and years following his initial encounter with this police department.

However, the duplicity involved in the farce of the investigation that was filed, culminating in the state trial in which justice was made a mockery of, is equally if not more so insidious because it directly deceived not only Jude and his civil rights, but also those of all others who depend on the criminal justice system for some semblance of righteousness. Or, quite possibly the most disturbing if not outright criminal aspect of this…. Works Cited The Associated Press. As part of the threat assessment approach, people can be subjected to torture, not because of criminal acts that they have performed or are planning to perpetrate. However, as they hold political or religious beliefs that are deemed dangerous to the state, they cannot deliver the stated goals within the stipulated time framework Rejali In addition, any possible threat to the state enables the authority to create a purpose and a justification for the implementation of a torture policy.

The state sanitizes torture in the eyes of the public. Torture is necessary in protecting the society from internal and external threats. The state determines the legitimate targets of torture by successfully applying negative labels to certain groups or individuals. Torture, therefore, must be seen as an expression of state power and a method of constituting and expressing the domination of the state over its subjects. For instance, it has been argued that the detainees from the War on Terror held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba possess little valuable, actionable intelligence.

Given this, it appears that deterrence and control are the primary motivations behind continued use of torture. In effect, the use of torture serves to transform an individual into the enemy. This transformation is perhaps the most vital aspect for torture. Another central economic factor related to the utility of state torture is the distribution of wealth within the country. Without a minimum level of wealth, redistribution through taxation or other means, vastly unequal lifestyles and opportunities of wealth is based on race or ethnicity.

In this circumstance, the political or ruling elite are much more susceptible to violent attacks from the terrorists. Given this, the regime may use state torture and other terror tactics in order to ensure the status quo and control any disenfranchised groups Hickman However, in advanced capitalist societies, the distribution of wealth helps to maintain a standard of living among most citizens, which diminishes the potential for internal violent conflict. In addition to economic factors, the political organization of the state plays a crucial role in the utility of state torture. In addition, political systems face fewer political, social, or economic constraints to the use of torture.

Moreover, agrarian and industrial nations have traditionally experienced a significant degree of political instability with military governments that have benefited from policies of torture. Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument. Hickman, Gill. Leading Change in Multiple Contexts: Concepts and Practices in Organizational, Community, Political, Social, and Global Change Settings. London: SAGE, Rejali, Darius. Torture and Democracy.

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