We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, and insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...will attempt to torture information out of any possible threat to the United States of America?
Rendition, a film directed by Gavin Hood, shows the political and the emotional aspects of torturing “enemies” of the United States. Following a suicide bombing (in an unnamed country) in which an American CIA agent is killed, Egyptian chemical engineer named Anwar El-Ibrahimi is seized by the CIA (in an American airport wile he is on his way home to his American wife and son). His wife investigates his whereabouts as he is subjected to torture and interrogation for being suspected of assisting a terrorist. Douglas Freeman is a CIA analyst who must take over the duties of the killed American, which include overseeing the torture of El-Ibrahimi.
I am against the use of torture to gain information from suspected terrorists. Torture is ethically and constitutionally wrong, obviously I am not the only person who has this belief or torturing wouldn’t be outsourced from the United States and would not be done in such a secretive manner.I believe that torture has proved to be ineffective in comparison to other forms of obtaining information. When information is gained from torturing, there’s no guarantee that the information will be useful, or even legitimate.
When a person’s mind and body are under that much stress, guilty or innocent, they will say whatever they think you want to hear just to get some respite. In the film, El-Ibrahimi flat out asks Douglas Freeman what the interrogators want to hear, “Tell me what to say and I'll say it.”
When Anwar reaches his breaking point, he makes up a confession on the spot. At this point he has presumed that he will never make it out of the situation alive and confesses to crimes he didn’t commit just so he can be left alone. When asked for the names of his cooperators, he lists the first realistic sounding names that come to mind (the names of Egyptian Soccer players) and claims that he aided the terrorists for a payment of 40 grand (bear in mind, he is a chemical engineer who makes 200 thousand a year). “Why would somebody who makes $200,000 a year risk his life and his family for $40,000?”
There has been controversy over the classification of water boarding as a torture method. The argument was made that it is not torture because the physical and mental suffering produced by this method of forced cooperation was not severe enough. To me, water boarding is torture. “Torture” is defined as inflicting pain or anxiety on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. In water boarding, water is poured over the covered face of a restrained captive, causing the sensation of drowning. Because the person cannot actually drown this way, it shouldn’t be considered torture? Call me crazy, but at the very least, water boarding is psychological torture.I felt dehumanized just watching the torture scenes in this movie from the safety of my cushioned seat. I can’t even begin to imagine the effect that torture has on the people involved.
