Bush declared on Friday that "This government does not torture people," but later talked about a program he created. "I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people. And when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them - because the American people expect us to find out information - actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."
Also, the appropriate members of Congress have received the memos from the White House and have approved of the techniques, stating that they were “tough, safe, necessary and lawful.” The controversy on whether the White House had the authority to do something like this is necessary and just. Party members from both sides are “furious at the say the administration has kept them out of the loop,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
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To the general public, a lot of the techniques used during interrogations would seem grotesque and horrible. People would consider "tough" a serious understatement. Just watch a couple episodes of 24 and I'm sure you would agree. However, if there was a serious threat to national security, these techniques are often necessary to get the required information from the people being interrogated... By keeping Party members, who aren't responsible for the defense of this country, out of the loop, the government is better able to do their job.
I think that the White House, mainly Bush, should have informed Congress of these harsh interrogation methods from the beginning. When you do something that is on the border of controversy, you should let others know. But I totally agree with the interrogation mehtods that are used on alledged terrorists. Unless it is unlawful, interrogation methods should be as tough as possible so that important information is known. Many Americans complain about not feeling safe; well, this is one way to keep Americans safe.
I think that President Bush is simply using places like Guantanamo to simply make the American people think that his administration is getting at least SOMEthing done. There have been several instances where completely innocent people have been held and interrogated at Guantanamo with incredibly inhumane treatment, and eventually coughed up a "confession" to end it all. For example, two satirist newspapers in the Middle East (who write for a satire newspaper on par with The Onion) wrote a piece making fun of Bill Clinton and Monika Lewinsky during the Bush administration, and they were arrested and put into Guantanamo because they were "serious suspects of terrorism", and were held there for over two years, suffering terrible interrogation methods DAILY.
In conclusion, I have no problem with a real terrorist going through "tough interrogation methods", but it really is not a reliable method to make the government seem responsible and proactive if they're not going to report things as truthfully as they can. (anyone remember the story about Jessica Lynch?)
Well, I readily support using "tough" techniques on a terrorist. However, I do not like the part about how it just has to be somebody who "may" have information. This means that if they "accidentally" enact their "tough" program on someone who is innocent, they could get away with it simply because they could enact the program based solely on suspicion. This gives the government an enormous amount of power because they could basically use this program whenever they wanted to and on whoever.
Hmm, I heard on the news that some detainees would just give in sometimes and say what ever the guards people want to hear just so they won't be tortured anymore. Isn't that even worse? Coercing information that might not even be true? False leads that may cost billions of dollars?
Any interrogation method that leads people to false confessions is too harsh. I think that the benefit of using such methods of interrogation is outweighed by the chances that the person being "interrogated" is innocent.
I especially think this goes against the ideal of people being innocent until proven guilty. Until someone is proven guilty as a terrorist, they shouldn't be forced to go through these "harsh interrogations".
I think that the White House not informing Congress and the American people about using the tough interrogation methods is worse than anything else. But the tough interrogation methods sound pretty awful. They should only be used in strict circumstances because it's no use to them if people are going to give false answers to questions just so the torture can stop.
But by Bush saying that some tough methods are in use to help protect the American people, I think it's all talk to make us feel better and that the government's doing something more than just keeping terrorists in jail. But I don't feel any safer knowing that these methods are used to help us. Personally, I think we should be more focused on what’s outside in the world than what’s in jail because the people outside can still attack us.
I watched a show today called 48 Hours or something along those lines where detectives had to solve homicide cases within 48 hours or most likely the suspects will have fled. As I watched the detectives interrogate the potential suspects for hours, sometimes going from one suspect to the next telling them that the other one said this or that, I realized how effective their technique was. Now claiming to have committed false acts based on water torture might occur, but I feel that the majority of the time the government is not going to want those confessions. They want what they hope to be able to prevent so therefore there are no benefits in them torturing a man into confessing that he is going to bomb a building, if he really was not going to be planning to bomb the building. However, if our government was not attempting to do this and another September 11th happened, they would be the first to be blamed. They must then choose to either try to protect the citizens of America, or protect the rights of people accused of being terrorists, it would not be a hard decision for me which one I would try and protect.
I feel the government has the right to be harsh to some extent because keeping the American citizens safe is the number one priority. However, if cruel tactics are used, it only leads to unreliable information because anybody (even innocent people) will lie under great amounts of pain to relieve themselves, which doesn't help the country. In response to the second paragraph, I feel as long as the appropriate members of Congress know, it is fine. I feel keeping this information away from too many party members is a good thing because too much leaked information will only lead to party clashing which doesn't help the nation.
I think using "tough" interrogation methods is ok when it comes to interrogating terrorists. However, the government should be CERTAIN that the person is a terrorist, this brings up a lot of controversy because it may be hard to tell if the person really is or isn't a terrorist without interrogating them. And, even if they are a terrorist they may give wrong information which could lead to time and money wasted following wrong information. Also, there is the problem of using "tough" interrogation methods on people that are only SUSPECTED terrorists because it may make them admit to crimes they didn't do.
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