Thursday, April 23, 2009

Should America Torture?


Looking around , I came across an article talking about torture. Evidently, I have failed to notice in the last couple of years that America uses torture techniques. Do I agree with it? Well, we did catch some bad guys running around like crazy half way across the world.






Obama has recently taken water-boarding and other torture tactics out of use. This is a really interesting move which has created a lot of chaos. Our vice president Dick Cheney disagrees with president Obama. He believes that Obama did a mistake in outlawing the tactic's because torturing the enemies has saved many American lives. So the question still remains:



Does torture work?


Some say it does, others say it doesn't. These are some view points in the article:


1. Harsh interrogation works. Period.

Proponents: Cheney, former CIA director Michael Hayden, former CIA director George Tenet

The argument: It weakens America to take harsh interrogations off the table against al-Qaida – a sworn enemy that trains its members to resist interrogation.


2. Harsh techniques may work sometimes, but the United States still shouldn’t use them

Proponents: President Barack Obama, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, Sen. John McCain

The argument: Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs laid it out in detail at Thursday’s White House press briefing, when he called the usefulness of harsh interrogations “ambiguous”


3. It doesn’t work. Period.

Proponents: Hillary Clinton, the American Civil Liberties Union, many military interrogators

The argument: Aggressive interrogation techniques like water-boarding simply don’t produce useful information.



It is interesting to see which people are supportive of the torture techniques and which are opposed. Interrogators think it doesn't work! I also found out that American troops have been trained to withstand torture tactics.


What do you think? For or against torture?

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