The Dark Side

I cannot sit here and allow our country to torture people knowing what I know now. To see what we have done to people in foreign countries makes me sick inside. I had to take a couple of days to critically think about what I saw in the film. Obama said in his pseudo State of Union speech that the United States will not torture. What on Earth does that mean? I take it hard to truly believe even Obama on this point. There are a couple arguments I would like to comment on such as; interpretations of torture, "a few bad apples," Bagram to Gitmo, clean vs. dirty torture, human nature and the problem of dirty hands.

I think the Obama Administration has learned so much from the Bush Administration. To publicly come out and say that the United States will no longer torture does not do enough for me. Will we not water board anymore? I will start to see a real change if we stop referring to prisoners of war as enemy combatants, therefore we will have to impose true rules. I see some steps in a positive light when we close Gitmo. Although, I still don't think we know everything about what our current state of how we are bypassing the Geneva Conventions. To say we don't torture is so false when the ultimate torture is killing a detainee and 105 people die at Abu Gharab.

The "a few bad apples" argument does now sit well with me either. Obviously the evidence is present that tells us soldiers will follow orders. How did these torture techniques cross the globe to Gitmo if Bagram was just a isolated incident. To send a letter to Dilawar's family and say it was a homicide has to have some ramifications to it right? I like to think that the Pentagon keeps orderly documents. We found out the coroner's report. The nature of the military makes me think this could happen anywhere when strict rules are not set in place. But even if strict rules are in place, I do not think there is a 100% guarantee that soldiers, when put into a interrogation setting wouldn't not torture a detainee.

We have hard evidence at Bagram that torture was present. How did it really spread through the military. I guess soldiers are continuously moving around but is still makes me wonder. Maybe it is human nature to take the muzzles off and do what it takes to get a statement. I think the environment of our post 9/11 military makes for a grim interrogation reality.

For me, this film redefined clean vs. dirty torture. Although not having read Prof. Breen's book, I originally though clean torture as somewhat better. I now find it hard to justify using all forms of torture or even simple forms of interrogation, knowing if they were to be combined, the results would be unbearable. Observing what McGill University found in their research findings makes me think a person can be permanently scared without showing a mark on their skin. I feel that the world have evolved from the Geneva Conventions to a worse state. Democracies that try to invent ways of interrogation that may not be as bad, seem to make the truth harder to find and define. I do not have faith that our government or any treaty or agreement is able to clearly state where the moral and ethical line is today.

I found the entire discussion and previous readings of setting rules about torture and qualified interrogators so wasteful after observing this film. I don't think it matters what we try to do. I believe human nature will always find a way to torture someone. I struggled with the question of dirty hands and politics earlier on in the semester, and have since come to the conclusion there they are not inevitable. However, when it comes to dirty hands in the military, I have a much harder time. We all agree that torture sucks, but what if we insured our conscience once and for all and just banned all torture. Wait, if we did indeed truthfully ban all torture, but were involved in a critical war, wouldn't dirty hands say that torture would eventually happen based on human nature? Crap, what do we do now! I come back to the argument about setting specific guidelines and rules. Rules could still easily be broken when in a high pressure environment. How many rules would be in place if Dilawar were to be alive today.

I have yet to figure out how to keep our country safe if we choose to ban torture. The utilitarian in me comes out as is does in most governmental policies, try what is best for the most amount of people. But I cannot sit here knowing what we did to Dilawar was justified in saving 'X' amount of lives, with the knowledge that Dilawar was indeed innocent. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Political ethics why are you such an oxymoron?