Second Paragraph of Is Torture Ever Acceptable?

Osama bin Laden, the backbone and the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda, the most-wanted fugitive on the FBI’s list of terrorists, was finally caught and took down in May 2011 by the hands of the US Navy S.E.A.L. Team. A documentary Zero Dark Thirty was later shot in description of the whole process in capturing of the villain. 

Torture had been headlines ever since the documentary was made public and broadcasted, and people who support torture are having their day in the sun. These advocates delivered the message that Bin Laden was only tracked down due to the intelligence acquired through “enhanced interrogation techniques”. And it’s indeed reasonable and justified to use torturing methods such as waterboarding, to obtain information and the whereabouts of Bin Laden. “We got Bin Laden!” They said, “And it was torture that led us to today’s success.”

Many disagree, for torture is illegal under the international law, and any nation caught to be doing so is most likely to be despised by the others. No matter how effective torture is, it’s still too big a risk for the country’s reputation. Statistics also prove that Al Qaeda’s number one recruiting tool is to badmouth about American’s use of torture, tricking their youths and children into believing the evilness of the USA, and that it’s interrogating and hurting their countrymen. Now just imagine the influences it would bring if all these rumors were true.

On the other hand, torture is likely to produce false intelligence. At the worst time, the tortured may even be implicated and convicted for crimes they didn’t commit. Precious time could be wasted on these false evidences; and while the act of torture still remains illegal, all the information extracted through this kind of interrogation method cannot be used as evidence in the court of law, which makes it just harder to bring people or terrorists to justice for the crime they committed.

So why use torture when there lie so many disadvantages and risks? If we could think of a better way to extract the intelligence from the suspects without the need of violence, threats, nor psychological pressure. And it’s sure to provide much convenience in the retrieval of useful information rather than false data.