The subject of torture is complex and highly debatable.
Last week President Barack Obama released four memos that detailed interrogation methods permitted by the Bush administration. Such methods included sleep deprivation, forced nudity, slapping, waterboarding, and covering detainees with insects – all in the hopes of obtaining information from suspected terrorists.
These torture techniques were devised from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency program called “Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape.” The program is designed to teach U.S. soldiers how to resist enemy interrogation. Bush’s team approved the methods to be used on detainees in U.S. custody, though that was not the original intent of the training.
While the Bush administration considered these tactics highly effective, Obama says the actions are inhumane, has put an end to such practices and will close Guantanamo Bay within a year.
Who is right…is the use of torture effective or ineffective?
It depends on whom you ask. Here’s an overview of comments I received from people on both sides of the fence:
Yes to torture
Of those who said “yes” to torture, most defended their response by saying that the people who are generally tortured are individuals who have no problem killing others – in other words – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
“Why not torture them. They intentionally want to inflict pain on Americans just because we’re different from them and have different beliefs,” said Melissa Anderson, a Muncie native.
A conservative blogger who goes by the name Dan R. said, “It apparently takes a lot to get them to talk…maybe we should just end this whole thing, and nuke the areas affected by them, and thus be done with it.”
Others believed that the U.S. had nothing to lose by torturing captives and supported the measure.
No to torture
Nearly everyone I spoke with who were against torturing believed that it was ineffective.
“Even if the person detained eventually talked, how do we know if what they said is true,” asked Mark Phillips of Indianapolis. “They could say anything just to end the torture, so since we’d have to question the validity, it makes since to simply do away with the whole method.”
In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, it took 183 stances of waterboarding before he talked. It took another al-Qaida leader 83 times.
Many of the people who opposed torture said it was inhumane and immoral.
As if the torture debate weren’t enough to contemplate, there’s also the issue of the CIA agents who administered the acts. President Obama previously said that he would not prosecute the individuals who tortured detainees, primarily because they were following the orders of their bosses. Recently however, Obama has shifted the decision to prosecute the former officials to Attorney General Eric Holder.
“With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that it is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that,” said Obama.
So…what do you think?
Should former CIA officials who were instructed to torture detainees be prosecuted?
Go to www.indianapolisrecorder.com to vote on our online poll.
