Abu Ghraib

“Torture”

October 23, 2011

            Is torture a necessary tool in order to protect America and its allies? I think that torture is necessary, but with limitations. What do I mean by that? There are many forms of “torture” that could be considered humane in order to get information from an enemy. What we saw about the torture going on at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was inhumane torture. Under any circumstances was that for of torture necessary. And for the people involved to take it was a joke, all deserved to be punished. What I am confused about is why did anyone stop it? Where all of the superior officers, and what were wasn’t this reported? As an American it hurt me to see the men that are fighting for me overseas involved in senseless torture. The government justifies this torture as necessary to obtain information from suspected terrorists, but is it necessary to humiliate a GROWN man by putting his underwear over his head, and cuffing him to the railing? What exactly is this going to accomplish? The United States military has really made them look “STUPID!” There is no justification to the type of torture that they were using to obtain information. Arresting ordinary citizens off the street because they are linked to a suspected terrorist isn’t right. What if the military started arresting ordinary citizens from the streets of the US because they are related to a suspected terrorist, and started to deprive them of their everyday rights? What would we do? I know exactly what we would do, we protest all the way to Washington, DC to let President Obama know how we felt about this! So why do we allow this to go on in Iraq. That’s simple, because if we don’t see anything happening then we assume when we hear something that it isn’t true. So it’s the out of sight out of mind syndrome that we use to justify not saying anything about the torture at the prison. Everyone that played a part in this event does need to held accountable. The tortures at Abu Ghraib may have gotten “MI” military intelligence, the information that was needed to capture key players in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but that doesn’t mean America is any safer. Why didn’t the Bush administration handle these allegations before leaving office in 2008? I feel that the Bush administration knew about these forms of torture but chose not to do anything because they justified it as for the “greater good” of the American as the reason for doing so. This is clearly a case of abuse of power, and needs to be investigated thoroughly, from the military men and women involved, to President Bush, and to the defense secretary.