Hidden Biases

After taking the IAT race test, my results show that I have a slight automatic preference for white people over black people. I was not very surprised by the results because I have taken this kind of test before and I got the same answer as I did the first time. The way the test works, I feel that people are bound to hit the space bar by mistake sometimes which counts for inaccurate results. However, I do feel that this test does grasp the concept of unconscious bias where people don’t realize how they are being prejudice.  After looking at the results and the biases page, I think that many people are prejudice and biases in real life without even knowing it. The page says that people start learning prejudice at age of 3 which bases their views for their life. Hidden biases influence me because the kind of community we live in. Deerfield is not a very diverse community which can sometimes reveal hidden biases in people that live there. Even though people might not say they are prejudice, there is always a little hidden prejudice that people might not even be aware of inside of them.

A Question of Torture: War on Terror

The next section of A Question of Torture is called War on Terror. This section was probably my favorite part of book as well as the most interesting. There are many examples and history in this section that raises lots of questions. An example that really cough my eye was in a security sweep before the pope’s 1995 visit, Manila police found bomb making materials in the apartment of an Arab tourist who was named Abdual hakim Murad. The Manila police didn’t have much time and needed to protect the pope. “After weeks of physical and psychological torture by beating, water boarding, holding lighted cigarettes to his private parts and threats of rape Murad cracked and confessed a plot to blow up eleven trans pacific aircrafts.” Murad was also implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and after he was tortured, he was sent to New York City to face trial. If there is suspicion of a terrorist attack, is torturing the person justified? If so, to what lengths can you push a person? If not, what should be done? These are all questions that ran through my mind after reading this section. The police did what they needed to do to protect the pope and found out about a plot to kill over four thousand people.  Later in this chapter, Harvard law professor Alan M Dershowitz told CBS TV’s show 60 minutes that torture was inevitable. He also stated, “ If you’ve got the ticking time bomb case, the case of the terrorist who knew precisely where and when the bomb would go off, and it was the only way of saving 500 or 1,000 lives, every democratic society would, have, and will use torture” As a big fan of Fox’s T.V. series 24, I extremely agree with what professor Dershowitz said. There are so many times on that show when Jack Bauer, the main character, is in a “ticking time bomb” case and has to use torture to get information out of a terrorist to save innocent lives.  I really think that torture should be allowed with no boundaries on a person who is withholding information that can lead to the death of innocent lives.

A Question of Torture: Impunity in America

            My next blog for A Question of Torture comes from the chapter Impunity In America. This chapter starts off talking about the famous Abu Ghraib prison situation where prisoners of war were being tortured by United States army. Torture was done physically and psychologically and many disturbing pictures were taken that came out in the press. There were over 94 incidents of abuse including twenty homicides. People didn’t know what to think about torture back home in the United States after this happened. An ABC poll documented that 35% of Americans believed in torture in certain circumstances at that time. In the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the Bush administration and the media didn’t really talk about the word “torture”. They rather focused the blame on the nine military police accused of torturing the prisoners.

            Another issue that this section talks about is psychological torture at Guantanamo Bay prison. In 2004, Red Cross found that psychological techniques had grown more refined and repressive involving inhuman acts, solitary confinement, and temperature conditions. Also in 2004, Guantanamo’s commander Jay W. Hood, insisted that, “detainees had not been tortured in any way, “ saying that psychological torture really isn’t torture.  Is that still considered torture if these psychological acts were taken place on prisoners? Some could argue that they don’t have morals because they have committed bad acts in the past. I do not agree with that. Yes, people in Guantanamo have made big mistakes in their lives but that is no reason to psychologically torture them. The only time people should be tortured is when they have information that can potentially harm the people of the United States.

A Question of Torture:Propagating Torture

In the next chapter titled Propagating Torture, the author wrote about how torture took place in the army. The author gave an example about an investigation of Colonel Robert B. Rheaut. The investigation involved him killing a suspected Vietcong spy named Tahi Khac Chuyeng. There was evidence found in Vietnam that Chuyeng was a double agent working for the enemy. Rheault found this out and used truth serum and lie detector tests for an interrogation which confirmed his treason. Then Chuyeng was shot and killed and his body was thrown into the sea. Then the U.S. commander in Vietnam ordered an investigation against Rheaut. Rheaut said that he had orders from the CIA to kill him. This is just one example of hundreds of similar executions that took place in South Vietnam. I don’t think that the CIA  should have given orders to kill Chuyeng, but rather have him put in prison and interrogated and try to force information out of him. Another really intresting part of this chapter was a study done on people who have been tortured before. There were 200 victims examined and doctors found nearly 70 percent still had mental symptoms of the time they were tortured. “Even many many years after their torture, victims still had nightmares, depression, panic attacks, and low energy.” These things can stick with a person for their whole life if they do not get the right therapy. This idea that people can have effects stay with them for their whole life is a big argument in the issue on torture. Not only do they have physical and psychological effects when they are getting tortured, but they have side effects for their whole life.

A Question of Torture: Mind Control

In the next chapter called Mind Control, McCoy discusses how the Cold War brought up concern about Soviet mind-control techniques. “This created research and the CIA spent billions of dollars over the next decade to research the mechanisms of mass persuasion and the effects of coercion on individual consciousness” The Soviets were able to extract public confessions from people they were torturing and the CIA was disturbed by that. The Soviets had mind control methods that included utilizing drugs, physical duress, electric shock, and possibly hypnosis against their enemies. Another big portion of the chapter talked about Dr. Hebb’s experiment where he found the impact of sensory deprivation. He found out that after forty-eight hours of isolation, most subjects experienced hallucinations similar to the effect of the drug mescaline. Hebb’s experiment concluded that isolation makes the brains cortex impaired so it behaves abnormally. These experiments got me wondering how this could affect torture and how the CIA could use these results to get information out of enemies.

A Question of Torture Blog 1: Two Thousand Years of Torture

In the first Chapter, Two Thousand Years of Torture, of the book “A Question of Torture”, the author Alfred W. McCoy gets into the history of the use of torture and interrogation around the world. A main topic in this chapter is how the CIA’s perfection of psychological torture was a major scientific turning point. The author states, “ For more than two thousand years, interrogations had found that mere physical pain, no matter how extreme, often produced heightened resistance.” So once the CIA developed psychological torture, they fused two methods together; sensory disorientation and self-inflicted pain. This causes the victims to feel responsible for their sufferings and give in easier to their torturers. The idea of sensory disorientation and self-inflicted pain might sound like a great way for the CIA to interrogate people, but these two techniques create physical and psychological trauma for the person who is getting tortured. This really caught my attention because even though the CIA had brought up this new method of torture that seemed to get the job done, was it humane to use these techniques against somebody? Is it wrong to push somebody that far to protect the United States? I really started to think about those questions after I read that part of the chapter. The author also discusses how torture started across the world. The church banned torture in 866 and trial by ordeal in 1215. Then it was revived in the 13^th century and Europe abolished it in the 1800’s. After World War One, torture started to spread again and the French tortured hundreds of thousands in the Algerian War. Learning about all the history of torture, it really brought questions to my mind about where and when torture should be allowed. This chapter really got me excited to read on in the book to learn more about torture and see how it really affects people.