24 is an American serial action drama television series. I’m a big fan of this show but I’m not going to convince you that it is great and worth watching. It’s your choice what you like. 7th season is aired now :)
I want to ask you about some topic that is in every season of the show… I want to ask you about your opinion about… torture.
Nowadays we can hear about CIA prisons and tortured terrorists there. If you haven’t heard about it just search some news or take a look here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031602615.html
In “24” there are many situations which “force” main character or some other characters to use torture. Many times it was shown how to “make people talk”. It was even said that this show is teaching US soldiers… take a look:
One comment for this video on youtube is very interesting:
Posted by „vashthestampede11”
„Oh and Human Rights First a question for you:
Do any of you have Children?
If so, another question, if two crazy pedophiles kidnapped your child, and you found one of them before the police did, what would you do? Politely ask him? Or beat the living daylights out of him and/or do whatever necessary to find your child?
If you say you would be concerned about his rights, you are a LIAR.”
Some more info:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/157437
… and here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/twen-m14.shtml
TV show is a tv show… but what about real life?
Imagine two situations:
1st – One of the agencies (FBI,CIA or whatever one you like in our country or in some other place in the world) caught a dangerous terrorist who killed many innocent people. This agency suspects that he knows something about future terrorist attacks which might take place in a short period of time… should they have the right to torture him and maybe get some new information out of him? Or should he be able to have a lawyer and all other rights?
2nd – Again one of the agencies caught someone… but this time a “normal” citizen who is suspected of helping terrorists. He didn’t kill anyone all he was supposedly doing was organizing transport for terrorists(let’s say that he was doing it for money and he wouldn’t hurt a fly). He might know something about future attacks which might take place in a short period of time. What about this situation? Should they have the right to torture him? They only suspect that he might be involved in something bad… and what if he is innocent? Time is ticking and maybe many lives are in danger…
Would you allow torture in any of those situations? Do you think that it would solve the problem?
For me it is hard to say if torture should be allowed… generally I’m against it but sometimes it seems it might be a good idea… it might be the only way to prevent many deaths or other dangers… but who should be the one to decide if one particular case should have a green light for torture and another shouldn’t? Any ideas?
What do you think?
Some more info:
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Uh that Was a lot for an single post, my post's will look miserable comparing to this :-P
ReplyDeleteI wanted to add an link to an interesting lecture from "ted talks" http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/272 on what happend in the Abu Ghraib prison...
That's interesting topic, however it's hard to say if tortures are good or unacceptable. I agree that in some cases tortures are the only way... primitive but effective. But this problem is more complicated due to misinterpreted laws and useless Justice Departments.
ReplyDeleteTorturing is bad, but I remember myself torturing some animals when I was a kid. I tortured mainly frogs by blowing them like balloons with a simple straw. Cats were my favourites also. I've put some of them in the water and shot some with an airgun. Generally I love animals, except for those two kinds :-). Tortures are horrible and shouldn't be used. There are other ways like "truth serum" which is used for an example in Morocco. As for tv shows, I only like few from times of my youth: "A-team", "Knight Rider", "Street Hawk", "Airwolf".
ReplyDeleteCheers.
At first I want to say that this is a good topic and thank you for the profound description;
ReplyDeleteI visited all links which you put. I want recall a case that happened last week….
Dutch police last Thursday arrested seven people suspected of planning a terrorist attack in Amsterdam. One of the attacker was a cousin of the terrorist who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid. So Bartek, please don’t say what should be used or not. This is a simple situation – this is war, and when it’s time of war all methods, which help to save you and your family, are justified.
I don’t believe in existence of any truth serum, maybe this is psychoactive drug like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_drug
or another special narcotic? Or maybe interrogator injects element A of “magic serum” and says:
-Listen up! I have infected you with a dangerous virus. Now it’s neutral for you and after 24 hours it will come out of you, and if you cooperate with us we will let you go. But otherwise I will be compelled to inject the element B of “magic serum”, and I will have to wear a protection suit because something strange will be happening with you, but don’t be afraid, we won’t let you die ….. ;) (ok I admit I read a lot of fantasy books).
Anyway, I enjoy that we have this kind of ‘secret service’ which protects global society and I am glad that Poland participates in this (Iraq, Afghanistan or secret CIA prison in Poland).
I think that we get only 5-10% of news about terrorism and it’s not enough to judge that tortures are necessary or not.
Thank you.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI’d like to say that in my opinion tortures are generally bad. When I watched posted videos I did like what president Clinton said. Tortures should be banned in whole civilized world. People fought for human rights, freedom and humanitarianism for ages and that was not easy battle. In critical circumstances person who decides to use tortures must take full responsibility for such act. Happily such situations doesn’t take place often, so they can be judged individually.
I’d like to add one more thing. I am not convinced, that 9.11 was a terrorist attack. I know that this is rather strange thing to say, but I strongly encourage You to watch “zeitgeist” or “911 in plane sight” on youtube.
Clinton says that, what people like to hear ;P
ReplyDeletefirst things first,
ReplyDeletethere is definitely a war going on, and only God knows what really happens with all that terrorists or suspects who get caught
secret prisons etc, they must be keeping them somewhere
but whose war is it? unlike Kamil, I'm not glad that Poland participates in operations in Iraq, we shouldn't be sticking our nose in someone else's business, USA wanted a war so now they have it
I'm not sure what to think about torturing,
the other day I was watching the movie called "Rendition", and there was a suspect who was innocent but they torture him till he said what they wanted to hear
so basically I think I can agree with what Clinton had said, tortures should be banned but if by chance something like vashthestampede11's story took place we should assume full responsibility for our actions
Are the tortures necessary nowadays ? Science is so high developed and I think that there are such medicines like truth serum which makes a human tell the true. Then nobody is hurt and there is no risk of death. But I wonder if such way of getting the true could be also called tortures or not.
ReplyDeleteIn my opionion it all depends on the meaning of word 'torture'. Is serum o truth a torture? I belive that in some way yes. Finally person is doing something which he didnt want to do. And this is just one example of mental torture methods.
ReplyDeleteSuch non phisical methods require much more $money$ which countries of third world dont have. And i think that this results in higher level of using phisical tortures. Whats more, why would any goverment spend money on mental methods while there are free phicisal ones.
So in conclusion i think that even in present days (unofficially) there is a lot of violence and phisical tortures just around us.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWell, i think that's depend of situation and scale of torture. In my opinion its good to torture in civilized way, for example torture by music. Torture by beating, electrocution, etc. is bad idea but sometimes necessary, unfortunately.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that unjustified torture is a crime and should be banned in the whole civilized world, including Poland and, especially, the US. I think what Bill Clinton said in the interview is deeply true. What I mean is that such cases as a terrorist attack taking place in a short period of time somewhere nearby have actually NEVER HAPPENED!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it's very primitive! I could understand African people, some people in jungle, Israel.. But US, or China? They are most powerful countries on the world.. and such thinks..
ReplyDelete