It is the government's duty to protect its citizens from the anticipation and the act of being terrorized. The question remains: Is torture ever justified? Should governments be given judicial approval for using torture in the 'extreme …show more content…
Advocates of torture are convinced that the injuries that are inflicted upon the prisoner are a justified punishment. They use the ticking time bomb dilemma, supported by the most extreme scenarios, and as a result, "few have challenged the justification provided." The ticking bomb scenario is a complex formulated issue. It assumes that there is a clear objection towards the doctrine against torture and; therefore, frame the position for torture so that an outright torture prohibition would be overwhelming or …show more content…
Authorizing torture is a slippery slope. If governments are given judicial authorization, "each act of torture makes it easier for governments or its citizens to accept the practice of torture in the future." (netivist.org, 2018)
The social and human effect of torture.
Consider this- beating; sleep deprivation, threatening and other cruel strategy used to gather 'critical information on an alleged planned terrorist attack.'
This rationalizing might seem disheartening, even to some, unimagined, but at the time of the war in Iraq, employees of the United States Army and the CIA, Central Intelligence Agency allegedly perpetrated a number of 'human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq (“Abu Ghraib Torture and Prisoner Abuse”). These violations 'included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder.
Did the ticking time bomb scenario of extreme circumstances warrant the use of torture at Abu Ghraib? There were no legal grounds presented to justify the claim of torture because no circumstances whatsoever may be used to justify the use of torture. The images from the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib caused the United States Government to argue that these were isolated occurrences and not an indication of the general practices of the military. "After a widespread public outcry, International human right watchdogs, including the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch challenged the Bush