Maya Blaisdell

4/27/16
AM
Process Paper

The US Should Not use Enhanced Interrogation on

suspected Terrorists
They start to feel they are drowning, they typically panic and struggle, and their body goes into
spasm. Waterboarding can result in brain damage, broken bones and psychological damage.
(BBC). This is what happens to people who are subjected to enhanced interrogation, this is not
only obvious torture, it does not yield accurate information. The United States should not use
enhanced interrogation on suspected terrorists. This country needs to use reliable and safe
methods to stop terrorist attacks, not unreliable, torturous revenge. It is very easy to blindly
attack people out of revenge, but we need to think about what the most just and sensible course
of action is.
The enhanced interrogation methods that the US government has used on detainees are cruel and
inhumane. These techniques are incredibly psychologically damaging both for the person who
was being subjected to them and the person who is administering them. Eric Fair, an interrogator,
said We hurt people, and not just physically, we destroyed them emotionally, and ... I think at
the very least it's a just punishment for us that we suffer some of those consequences, too.
(Fair). The interrogators have to live with the fact that they destroyed people for the rest of their
lives. A lot of these people didnt understand or realize what they were doing until is was too
late, and at that point they had damaged the detainees so much that they were no longer coherent.
According to ex-CIA officer John Kiriakou, al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah "broke" within
half a minute of being waterboarded. Abu Zubaydah said later he had made things up to satisfy
his interrogators. (BBC). Abu Zubaydah was later waterboarded 183 times even though it was
very clear that further waterboarding would not have been beneficial to gain more information.
These interrogation techniques have not yielded good results, people have given false
information to stop the interrogations, but very few people have actually given useful and true
information. As early as the third century A.D., the great Roman Jurist Ulpian noted that
information obtained through torture was not to be trusted because some people are so
susceptible to pain that they will tell any lie rather than suffer it. (Costanzo). It has been clear
since the third century that these techniques do not work, and that intense physical and
psychological trauma will not yield true information, it will only yield false information. Not
only are these techniques horribly traumatizing, they are also illegal.
The United States used prisons in other countries solely for the purpose that those different
countries have less strict laws about interrogation techniques. Interrogators used these locations
called black sites under the impression that because they were overseas these harsh techniques
were legal. The government used locations in countries where the laws about the acceptable
interrogation techniques were less strict than in the US. Former congresswoman Elizabeth
Holtzman said We dont have to go through international courts to obtain justice. Federal courts
have U.S. jurisdiction over its own citizens, even if the conduct in question occurred abroad.

(Holtzman). This clearly shows that the US government broke a law they created, and the people
who administered these interrogation techniques legally should have been prosecuted for their
actions. Not only are these actions against US law, they are also against the Geneva Conventions.
Article 3 prohibits torture, cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of prisoners of war
(POWS). In addition, article 17 bars physical or mental torture that is inflicted to secure
information or a confession from prisoners. Countries that violate the Geneva Conventions can
be prosecuted for war crimes. (Ahmed). As shown in article seventeen, mental torture is
prohibited, and interrogators have used both mental and physical torture on detainees. The laws
are clearly stated in documents that the US government has helped create and sign. The fact that
the government broke the law is probably the reason the CIA was not truthful about the
techniques that were being used.
The interrogation methods that were used by the CIA were a lot worse and less effective than the
government and the public were being told. The CIA told the government and public that these
techniques were effective, but in reality, only seven out of thirty-nine detainees gave information
(Mitchell). This shows that these techniques were almost not effective at all, yet the CIA
continued to do this to people. This is also shown in the CIA Senate Report, where is says the
CIA gave the false impression the CIA was acquiring unique information from the use of the
techniques. Not only were these techniques ineffective, they were far more brutal than it [the
CIA] represented to policymakers and the American public. (Rogan). This shows that the CIA
didnt think what they were doing was justified, and that is why the were not truthful. If they
were within the law, they would have been honest with the government and the public. The fact
that they were not honest makes it clear that the CIA new they were doing something wrong, and
they need to be held accountable for their actions.
My opponent said that enhanced interrogation techniques are not torture, but according to the
Geneva Conventions it is. Article one states that torture means any act by which severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as
obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession when such pain or suffering
is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or
other person acting in an official capacity. (Geneva Conventions). This clearly shows that what
the US has done to suspected terrorists is torture. Waterboarding, a technique that has been used
many times is incredibly physically and psychologically damaging, especially when it is used
over and over again on the same person. A person who was waterboarded 183 times broke
within thirty seconds, it is obviously torture when when someone has been put through a
drowning simulation 183 times. The US signed the Geneva Conventions, and therefore needs to
be held responsible for inflicting torture upon hundreds of people.
As I said earlier, torture is not a reliable or just course of action for fighting terrorism. It is
clearly stated in the Geneva Conventions that the enhanced interrogation methods used by the
US is torture, and does not work as a useful interrogation method. The enhanced interrogation
techniques that are used by the US are incredibly harmful and brutal for everybody involved, and
the cost is not worth the gain.

Sources:
Ahmed, Amel. Did CIA Interrogation Methods Break the Law? Aljezeera America 9 Dec.
2014. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/9/the-cia-torturereportalegalexplainer.html.
BBC. "CIA Tactics: What Is 'enhanced Interrogation'? - BBC News." BBC News. N.p., 10 Dec.
2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11723189
CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment. Human Rights Web 25 January 1997. http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html.
Costanzo, Mark. Gerrity, Ellen. The Effects and Effectiveness of Using Torture as an
Interrogation Device: Using Research to Inform the Policy Debate. Social Issues and
Policy Review 2009: 32. Web.
https://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interrogation.pdf
Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman and a co-author of Cheating Justice: How
Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law, Plotted to Avoid Prosecution and What We
Can Do about It.
Fair, Eric. 'It Was Torture': An Abu Ghraib Interrogator Acknowledges 'Horrible Mistakes'
National Public Radio 4 April 2015.
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/04/04/472964974/it-was-torture-an-abu-ghraibinterrogator-acknowledges-horrible-mistakes
Mitchell, Andrea. Windrem, Robert. Senate Report Finds CIA Interrogation Tactics Were
Ineffective. NBC News 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-torturereport/senate-report-finds-cia-interrogation-tactics-were-ineffective-n264621.
Rogan, Tom. Its Report on Enhanced-Interrogation Techniques Amounts to Intelligence
Birtherism. National Review 9 December 2014.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394291/senate-democrats-purge-record-tom-rogan.

Scuiletti, Justin. Report: CIAs Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Brutal and Ineffective.
PBS Newshour 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/enhancedinterrogation-techniques-ineffective/.