Presented as “the story of history’s greatest manhunt for the world’s most dangerous man” (Mayer), Zero Dark Thirty is the dramatization of the search for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Centering on the work of Maya Lambert, a Central Intelligence Agency officer, the film has raised controversy due to its historical inaccuracy in depicting torture. The film justifies torture by portraying that enhanced interrogation techniques provided key information in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In the film, Maya Lambert locates Osama bin Laden by following a lead from a tortured detainee. However, the information that led to the killing of the al-Qaeda leader was the result of tireless research and deductive…
“We tortured some folks.” Barack Obama, President of the United States, said in response to the release of the CIA torture report when he addressed post-9/11 America. Senator Dianne Feinstein accused the CIA of spying on the Senate’s intelligence committee. John Brennan, director of the CIA, denied that accusation. However, an investigation brought forth the truth; the CIA had penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee and found that the Senate was preparing a report…
In the article, Report: CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques “brutal” and “ineffective” by Justin Scuiletti says that the enhanced interrogation techniques implemented by the CIA are not that effective with the detainees. The Attorney General John Ashcroft approved verbally the methods used as enhanced interrogation techniques on July 24, 2002. A report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday announced the CIA’s use of several interrogation methods. In the report there were in…
this was a far more brutal bit of phrasing than the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” spin the CIA had lulled America into. The history of American torture truly begins in 2001 for this paper. Before 2001 torture was not something that the American public thought about. If I asked someone in 2001 what waterboarding was, they’d probably think it’s some kind of new and hip aquatic sport. This all changed on September the Eleventh of 2001. On that day, terrorists attacked American soil; running…
The first problem is that it does not satisfy Kant’s first version of a categorical imperative, the Principle of Universality, which states that one should always act as if their actions will become universal law. People would not appreciate other countries using those techniques on United States’ citizens. In fact, there have been situations of a similar nature in which Americans spoke negatively on the treatment of their fellow citizens. The second problem is that the chosen course of…
torture or also known as enhanced interrogation. As we can see from this information the use of torture has saved countless numbers of lives and he prevented future atrocities in the US. This is one of many reasons that torture should be justified. Citizens believe that torture save innocent lives but that is not always the case. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield said torture has more goals then finding the location of the bomb. He goes onto say that torture is being used for the wrong intention. This is…
Imagine that someone has buried your family alive. You have the suspect in custody, but the only way to get the location of your family and save them, is if you torture the suspect. What do you do? By not torturing the suspect, your family dies, but is torture justified? I believe that in extreme circumstances torture is justifiable, when the lives of innocents outweigh the comfort of the guilty. In recent years torture has become a highly debated topic. After 9/11, President Bush authorized the…
Torture is a commonly debated subject, some believing it is an appropriate means of receiving wanted information, while others believe it to be unjust and a completely cruel idea. Torture is not only severely damaging to the the prisoner, it is also extremely detrimental to the perpetrator as well. According to CNN’s report on the investigation into the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 's report on the CIA and its detention and interrogation program, of 119 detainees captured between…
into his lungs, the mirroring of drowning put upon him. Finally, he can take it no longer, and spills. The information helps lead us toward the extinction of terrorism. Enhanced interrogation has been a controversial topic for quite some time now. Enhanced interrogation is a method used to get intelligence information, and considered torture by many. Some say it is wrong to torture even when the terrorists have done wrong. Others say techniques such as ‘waterboarding’ can be used to acquire…
The issue of whether or not torture is an effective and appropriate means of extracting information from subjects has been pondered for centuries. More so than ever before, the interrogation tactics used by the CIA after September 11, 2001 have been the subject of intense scrutiny. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the CIA ramped up its efforts to acquire human intelligence information deemed vital to United States national security. The compelling need to acquire information…