Seminar Response 9-23

After reading the article, I agree with the opinion that it is not ok for us to torture suspects and that it should be abolished from our countries policy. Starting with the Deceleration on Independence we state the idea that everyone is created equal and should be treated so as stated in the famous line, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Even though these people that were being tortured were not U.S. Citizens, they should still be treated like one. And yes, I understand that a certain person may have just helped plot and kill 3,000 U.S. Citizens, but that doesn't mean that they should tortured with techniques that inflict physical pain and suffering just to get information out that may or may not be useful. And what about the person that just may have found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and are tortured to get “information” out of. Say we do adopt torture or enhanced interrogation as U.S. Policy and is used commonly, just like Abu Ghraib, things will go bad and power will change. What was intended as torture will turn out much worse and would get out of control. Like the article says “The migration of torture through the military likely, this loophole ows the doors wide open.” And “Once you permit torture for someone somewhere, it had a habit of spreading (Sullivan).” Torture also poses a question of our own interrogation system, do we not trust our own non torture interrogation techniques? We have devised and tested our own interrogation techniques that have been used for many years. So all of the sudden are these techniques not good enough. I somewhat understand the viewpoint of Krauthammer in that it would only be used in certain situations where information is needed to prevent a possible terror plot. But in reality, do we really capture someone and have knowledge of what they are planning to do? Krauthammer says    “Whatever extreme measures are used are for reasons of nothing but information.” But that is a very fine line and can easily be blurred and crossed. Torture should be abolished because it goes against the morals of this county and if we did so, it would open the door for the future of interrogation. It would also be adopted worldwide and could even be used against our own citizens by other countries or terror groups.