When Is Torture Justified?

Renu Johnson

AUW 080014

February 18, 2012

When Is Torture Justified?

Philip Heymann in his article, Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist be Tortured, discusses the various approaches different nations can adopt towards torture. One approach could be saying no to torture ignoring whatever is at stake or implementing a system which requires a torture warrant for the use of non-lethal torture or the selective use of torture without legally approving torture. According to Heymann, it is the right of the nation to come up with a democratic decision as to which abovementioned method should be used to minimize torture.

Heymann argues that the approaches towards torture could be different for different nations. He gives the example of legalization of torture in U.S. A. and in Israel and the various implications it might hold. The legalization of torture in U.S could strongly influence the future policy formation on torture as one of most powerful nations in the country.   Through this article though Heymann brings into light the need to discuss the issue of torture and its justification, he adopts a more cultural relativist stance by saying that it is up to the people and the nations to decide when torture can be justified. This is unacceptable because nations can be biased and they might adopt torture to target the citizens of their antagonist nation. Therefore, it is important to reach an international consensus on torture than letting nations decide for themselves what is best for them because such policies should be approached with more seriousness than that is given to an economic or social policy that indirectly affect the masses since it is directly aimed at a citizen’s personal and physical integrity while disregarding the possibility of the person being innocent, and can portray a nation’s attitude towards its individual citizen’s rights and security.  This is really important because though utilitarianism is a useful technique to decide what is best for the society, what is morally right might not necessarily be what is best for the society. It is very necessary to reach an international consensus and to have a universal approach towards torture because humans are equal and basic human rights are the same across the nations (though some nations do not grant these rights).

How should we deal with a ticking bomb terrorist?

The world we are living today is full of the fear of murders, terrorist attacks, bomb blasts. Now, the question is how we can save our lives from these unfortunate calamities. There are two possible ways, negotiation or acting violently, to solve this problem though one would be better than other or one would considered better than the other according to the different people. According to A Lan M, it is justified to torture a suspect when it saves more lives of innocent people than the tortured. However, there should be limits on the use of torture to make sure that approval of torture does not lead to immorality of punishing innocent or resulted in tyranny. Thus, the use of torture should be authorized by legal system and it should be the last resort. Though legal structure of controlling torture based on specific criterion or situation might cause dangerous situation, it is important to establish democratic accountability and remove the possibility of tyrant government. If a democratic government is allowed to unlawful acts “Off-the-book actions below the radar screen” (152),  the rule of democracy gets violated as well as it creates the possibility that the government can turn to a tyrant in the name of securing a nation as there are examples of these kinds of government in the history. Moreover, the legal system will make sure that the law enforcement officials do not punish innocents without compelling information since they will be required to submit the information before they torture a suspect (159). Additionally, the option of torture should be used as a last resort. Otherwise, human rights would be violated in the first place by the violent action the officials. Thus, the officials should try non-violent ways such as negotiation, immunity, and threat to get information since there is possibility to get information without being violent.

A Lan M’s legal system of torture to deal with terrorism seems convincing.  However, can this legal system benefit the people of a corrupted government which does not have transparency? Or it will help a corrupted government to be tyrant by using the trademark of the law of legal system?

 

 

 

 

 

Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Tortured?

Shakila bano

Reflection paper: “should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Tortured?”

I asked many people about the definition of terrorism but no one could satisfy me. Terrorism is a term which can be justified in some situations and not in many situations. I read somewhere, “one country’s freedom fighter is terrorist for the other country”, and that’s what somehow gives a justified definition to the term terrorism. I think the term terrorism varies from country to country and people to people. If we could consider the example of LTTE, Tamil tigers which are freedom fighter for the Tamils and on other hand they are considered to be very extreme terrorists by the Sinhalese. First question that comes to mind when we talk about terrorism is; what is the main purpose of the terrorist groups behind these acts? Not everyone is ready to accept the demands of terrorist due to political, religious or any other reason, however once their demands are known is it justifiable to fulfill their demands in order to prevent lives of other people? or their demands shouldn’t be fulfilled because due to some reason they are not acceptable by the majority.

In many cases it happens that once someone is suspected to be a terrorist he has to go throw very harsh and heartbreaking punishments. The question rises, only because he is blamed to be a terrorist, does his punishment is justified or not? The same question is raised by Philip Heymann in his article, whether Ticking Bomb terrorist be tortured or not. There have been many discussion related to this topic, especially after 9/11 this topic has always been front line of almost every news paper. Let us consider an example of ticking bomb terrorist. Let suppose we get to know that someone has placed a bomb in auw and our lives are in danger. We are suspecting someone to be responsible for this act and we are pretty much sure that this person knows when and where the bomb is going to explode and kill many people. In this case what should be done in order to save the lives of so many innocent auw students?  My view won’t be same as others but I think, when a terrorist does something he is pretty sure that his final destination is death so he never ever speaks a single word in order to save his life. Secondly, every terrorist does this kind of act for a purpose may be family, religion or politics. So, in order to know the fact it is better to bring his son, wife or a dear one to the custody and just pretend that they are going throw a hard time just because of  his father or husband this can be a kind of blackmailing and result could be positive. However, author’s view is nonlethal tortures could be used if it can prevents lives of thousand people. I also agree with his suggestion because unless until it is not proved that the suspected person is a terrorist his punishment can’t be justified. Additionally author suggests that we belong to a democratic nation so it is our choice to make the torture nonlethal. We have read and seen many examples in the book about the positive results of nonlethal punishments, which also prevents the human rights, then why we shouldn’t go for it?.

Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Torture?

Afroza

There is always debate on hypothetical ticking bomb scenario “should the ticking bomb terrorist be tortured? Many people are against to torture the ticking bomb terrorist because torture is wrong, immoral, and against the human rights. In the reading, “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Torture?” the author Alan M. Dershowitz argues in favor of torture where he mentions about the legalized non-lethal torture. Therefore, he gives the example of Israel where the torture is not a hypothetical situation; rather it is reality and requiring to prevent terrorism. He describes reality is different than the hypothetical ticking bomb scenario. According to Dershowitz, to save thousands innocent people lives, to obtain information, and to prevent terrorism torture is needed. Maybe we are not sure whether it will work or not, but there is chance to get information and save many people’s lives.

 I support Dershowitz, as he mentions the non-lethal torture to get information because in reality we see that it is not easy to get information from the terrorist. Even though without torture, if we offer to terrorist all the possible options to give the information or to accept the situation, he may refuse to talk. Even if we make him understand that his action is morally wrong and it is threat for many people’s lives still he will refuse to talk because according to his own perspective whatever he is doing is right and he also believes that his action is also for greater good. For example, Jamatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) is a terrorist group in Bangladesh which group responsible for bomb attack in 2005 throughout Bangladesh, where many people died. To them their action is good for society and good for Islam. When some of them are arrested, they refuse to give the information but to prevent their future terrorist attack we need to know their future plan and their gang’s information. So the court authorize to police to take them in police remand to obtain their information because the person will say anything to stop being tortured. If the authority does not authorize torture, this might be questionable for the security and safety of citizens.

But his perspective also raises the question, how do we know the suspected person is the real criminal or he knows everything regarding bomb? Maybe the person is totally innocent. If we torture what will be the limitation of non-lethal torture as the author is talking about non-lethal torture. What can we do if the scenario is like this: Police captures around thirty people and among this thirty people one person may know about the bomb but they are not quite sure, so in this situation should the police be permitted to torture all thirty?

Is Torture Justified?

To begin with why should we torture people? What is justifiable to torture a person? In “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands”, Walzer mentions explaining the case of ticking bomb, even though a leader believes that torture is barbaric and inhuman activity, he should order to torture the terrorists, who knows the location of bombs. Similar to Walizer, Machiaveli brings up the idea that to control over power and to save a country from attack, a leader must be violent or to command his soldiers. The leader himself do not torture rather he commands his soldiers to do barbaric things like torture. He just needs to “express his belief” to the people that torture is wrong and “the rest of us will consider him as a great and wonderful leader” (Walzer, 167).

Indeed in case of terrorism, terrorists threat and kill innocent lives. Thus, if we torture to get information from terrorists, whose aim is to kill innocent lives through bomb blasting, torture must be justified in this situation since “pain is lesser an more remediable harm than death” (Dershowitz, 144). However, Dershowitz says if torture is justified in case of ticking bomb case then why not it should have a “torture warrant”? And torture in ticking bomb case should be done openly. The author quoted Abrams “in a democracy sometimes it is necessary to do things off the books and below the radar screen” (Dershowitz , 151); likewise Walzer says political actors perform sometimes beyond their “moral inhibitions” (168). Beyond the morality and “below the radar screen” can be a reason of human rights violation and “compromising democratic principality” (Dershowitz ,153). As a citizen, we have rights to know what our leaders are doing. As well as the author mentions that in a democratic society, citizens must not support any illegal works or do not expect leaders or government do any illegal or wrong work (152).  Is not it illegal or wrong to kill barbarically innocent lives? Humanity says ‘no to torture’ what if the choice between all human beings (including children) are tortured or a terrorist who made the plan to blast a bomb in a crowd of people? Though it is brutal and unethical to torture, it is not killing or mass murder of a group of people who are targeted in bomb blasting.

Torturing is not killing. If you torture someone only for a while, he/she will be alive; however, if in bomb blasting people die, their lives will not be back after sometime. Moreover, how long the torture will be it depends on when the victims give the information about what the group of terrorists planned to kill innocent, since in the purpose of some information tormentors use torture.  Dershowitz says torture warrant will be effective to get the information easily from the suspects (159). However, the question is in ticking bomb case, shall we just wait to get a torture warrant? And in the meantime roads will be splattered with blood of innocent lives right after the blasting that the terrorists group planned. Those innocent lives will lose their lives who did not involve neither with terrorism nor with politics. Is not it cruel, barbaric and inhuman and unjust?