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.