In every war, information is a weapon. In a “war against terrorism,” where the adversary wears no uniform and hides among the civilian population, information can matter even more. But does that mean that torture can sometimes be justified to
Most people have become more aware of terrorism, since September 11th 2001, on this date members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group managed to hijack American Airlines Flight 11 and drive it into the World Trade Center, located in New York City. The attack caused 2,819 people to die; some were working in the towers, some were just very unlucky and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and also some of the emergency personnel died that day trying to rescue others (www.nymag.com). There were a few other attacks that day, each one killing more innocent people. These horrible acts of terrorism caused the United States to go into panic mode. Americans evacuated buildings, shut down airports, and rushed to see their loved ones because they were terrified of what might happen next .
From the wars to our today’s life, torture is used as a mean of self-defense or other-defenses to against unlawful actions. There are many different views regarding whether torture can be justified. In my opinion, torture cannot be justified during wars amongst the army but it can be justified in today’s life if someone makes imminent threat towards one’s life. First of all, there is no law or rule to be working during wars. In spite of the fact that every soldier is fighting for their survival and tortures the enemies for gaining important information in order to save someone’s life, this threat is applied bidirectional.
‘War on terror’ essay On September 11th, the infamous terrorist organisation known as Al Qaeda committed an act of war against America. George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ speech declared war against all terrorist group committees with utter anger and disparagement. To illustrate this, George Bush has strongly depicted Al Qaeda as iniquitous freedom haters, meanwhile, the Americans as victims of war. Bush then presents his own solution describing it as the only method that best helps not only American citizens, but the world’s nations as well. In George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ speech, George Bush has strongly depicted Al Qaeda as iniquitous freedom haters.
He decided that in order to protect the country as a whole, he would sacrifice one city due to the greatest happiness principles. He decided to save the greatest amount of people. Bombing New York City would be a tragic event because so many lives would be killed, but he had to prove a point and he realized if he only targets one city, the whole country would be able to survive. The Russians would most definitely bombed more than one place in our country killing thousands of more humans then there would have been in NYC. Also, the United States would get angry as well and bomb just as much in Russia, if not more, killing a larger amount of people then just the amount of people in Moscow.
Shue does not necessarily attempt to show that torture is never justified. In fact, he admits that he “can see no way to deny the permissibility of torture in a case just like this” (Shue, pg 141) as he portrays a scenario involving the destruction of the city of Paris and most of its population. Its fate hangs in the balance and can be potentially avoided by the torturing an individual confirmed to have planted a nuclear weapon within its confines to ascertain its whereabouts. In his explanation of why torture is morally reprehensible Shue discusses the laws of war which exist that determine what he calls the “proper conduct of the killing of other people” (Shue, pg 127). He explains that a basic principle is the distinction between combatants and noncombatants.
The DHS is so determined to protect society from terrorism that ultimately they destroy the freedom that they are striving to protect. The terrorist attacks create panic among the citizens of the United States and the DHS cracks down on these terrorists. They become determined to the extreme where they start doubting everyone in the city, even the people who know nothing or are very much innocent. This is what happens when the DHS starts tracking everyone’s BART passes, believing somehow they will be able to catch the terrorists if there are any anomalies in the daily routes of the card carrier. When Marcus is held by the SFPD officers helping the DHS and asks if they track everyone with a funny ride history, the police officer replies, “we get an alert when anyone with an uncommon ride profile comes out and that helps us assess whether we want to investigate” (Doctorow 106).
Moreover, to smooth out the process of protection the citizens of the United States will also be discussed along with the effectiveness as of today. Public Need What was caused the need for the policy? In September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center, the pentagon, and other areas were severely attacked by vicious foreign terrorists known as the Al-Qaeda. These terrorists were Islamic who hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, while the third plane soared into the Pentagon just outside of Washington, D.C., along with the last plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania ("History.com," 2011).
There exists laws of, but it is prudent that one understand that war; even with laws can and never will be clean and moral. Now we face a new war, the War on Terrorism. In this war we hope to not cause deaths to civilians and/or non-combatants, while the enemy attempt the exact opposite. Additionally the enemy hides among civilians and non-combatants, thus mitigating the advantage that America and its Allies have regarding firepower and resources. This method also allows them to operate purely within the civil population.
The media blamed us for the 9/11 attacks, yet it wasn’t us. The whole idea of “Al-Qaeda” is fake. This is all fake. All this stuff the media pushes into our brains is their way of brainwashing us. They’re just trying to present Muslims in the worst possible way.