The American government has recently been involved in some dirty behavior involving their methods of detaining domestic and foreign terrorist prisoners. The torture tactics reported by the media go against the moral grain of this country and anger the international community so the Bush administration must be held accountable for its actions. However, it seems President Obama is only prolonging the inevitable by preventing the release of detainee photos.
The American government has recently been involved in some dirty behavior involving their methods of detaining domestic and foreign terrorist prisoners. The torture tactics reported by the media go against the moral grain of this country and anger the international community so the Bush administration must be held accountable for its actions. However, it seems President Obama is only prolonging the inevitable by preventing the release of detainee photos.
The view that the international community has as a whole on the United States is oblique at best. In fact, it has gotten worse than that. Around the time of September 11 the international community felt sympathetic towards America but that sympathy seems to be dissolving. With the continuation of the wars in the Middle East, international citizens just see us as "...the big guy riding roughshod over everyone else." Seeing that the international community already views us as a bully doing whatever we please, the lack of prosecution towards those who went against the Geneva Convention by torturing foreign prisoners will displease them even further. By withholding detainee photos, President Obama believes he is preventing further anti-American opinion. In reality, the international community has already developed a strong anti-American opinion, and by withholdingthese photos it might do the opposite of what he intended. It is important for the United States to keep a good face for the international community, but its hard to do when we keep on giving them further reason to dislike us.
The blame has been pushed from the top to the bottom. None of the Bush administration members who approved the torture or the CIA agents who enacted out these torture tactics will likely be criminalized because, according to law they created, they were acting legally. Even if torture was legalized in our country, it is still illegal according to the international rules from the Geneva Convention. So I wonder, is it possible for the home countries of the detainees to pursue a case against the United States in an international court of law? Whatever might happen in an international court is still up for speculation however, the lawyers who devised the policy of the laws making the torture legal will likely be seeing some court time soon by the United States.
Prisoners were held captive and tortured by such methods as wall slamming, head slapping, confinement in boxlike containers, and waterboarding in the holding facility of Guantamo Bay. This prison represented an "evil" America to the international community and President Obama has already taken the first step in closing down this facility. The symbolism of closing this facility has hopefully taken an edge off of our "evil" reputation to the international community but now it is time for the ones responsible for this inhumane treatment to be punished. As we all have heard by now, the waterboarding method creates a feeling of drowning. The detaining individuals and ill care and treatment towards them in this prescribed manner is outrageous and the fact that none of the Bush administration and the CIA agents who acted out the Bush administrations orders will likely be held accountableis ill bearing.
Those in favor of torture argue that the information attained from using such methods as waterboarding has saved American lives. This torture should not be permissible period. Not only should we act according to the law, we should act according to what is morally correct to ourselves. Orders from above to do this to detained prisoners should not be a reason for one to go against their human capacity of morality to give someone the feeling of dying. Everyone has a moral compass guiding them, and I believe those that were in any way associated with the allowance of torture on citizens from far and abroad should be handled.
The Bush Administration led congress astrayin their belief of what was really going on; watering down what was really going down in Guantanamo Bay. Torture was approved by the Bush administration and although they and the CIA were the ones enacting out the anti-moral policy, the lawyers who devised the policies seem to be the scapegoats. By preventing the release of the detainee photos, President Obama is (intentionally or unintentionally) helping the Bush Administration out by saving some of their face. So I wonder, where will this all end?