Esperanza Escobar Moreno
092-54945
American Foreign Policy
Prof. L. J. Carlson

The Torture of Terror Suspects

The word “torture” comes from the Latin tortura, which means “the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty”. Also, the 1975 World Medical Association Declaration defines torture as: “The deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.” The 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture expands upon this definition, distinguishing the legal …ver más…

One of the arguments evaluates how “allowing torture in a limited context can increase the situations in which it will be used” and this sounds logical because when some situations or methods that once were seen as highly impermissible begin to being practiced normally it becomes easier to ignore its moral implications. The famous saying “the ends justify the means” is a clear example of this argument as it defends one’s right to use anything in order to protect oneself and guarantee security to a country’s population.
The use of torture is a reality; it is practiced all over the world and by many liberal democratic states whose main goals are to promote human rights and freedom. The employment of torture brings disadvantages like bad publicity affecting a nation’s public image, “legitimacy, commerce and foreign aid on which it depends.”
The second debate suggests that the practice of torture will eventually dehumanize society. The use of violence has been spread all over the world through the power that the media has on people, images and videos of violence are usually on our T.V. screens. This debate may somehow exaggerate the real facts as the society has already proved that the use of violence nowadays is normal everywhere. Torture doesn’t make any difference in this case as all nations permit