Torture

In the wake of the eleventh of September terrorist attacks on America, many things the nation's leaders once took for granted changed. One of the major changes initiated as a result of these attacks was national security policy. President George W. Bush viewed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as an act of war. One particular problem the country faced with this was the fact that the organization that carried out these attacks was not a state but a group of Islamic terrorists receiving explicit support from the government of Afghanistan. As a part of his response, President Bush declared that the country was at war with Al Qaida and any government that supported them. In the wake of this declaration of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), the United States found itself having to answer many difficult questions. One of these questions that would eventually cause an international outcry was the use of torture against captured enemy fighters. The United States, a strong proponent for humanitarian law, soon found itself criticized for its treatment of detainees as well as its use of secret prisons. In short, the international community accused the United States of committing acts of torture. As a result of these accusations, commentators and politicians have had endless debates about torture warrants, the use of waterboarding, stress positions and other interrogation techniques, and legal applicability of international law and treaties to a nonstate enemy. In light of this controversy, the purpose of this study is therefore to examine the major arguments both for and against the use of torture, to examine these arguments against an ethical decision-making model, and to see if torture is really a feasible resource for the United States to employ in pursuit of its goals as defined in the 2006 National Security Strategy.