An Interrogation of Our Own Motives: The Terror of Torture

The Huffington Post
By: Sabrina Bilimoria

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Two years into his thirty-month sentence, former CIA agent John Kiriakou was released from prison on Feb. 3, 2015 and remains under house arrest. Kiriakou was the first CIA official to be punished in relation to the Bush administration torture program, but not for having committed acts of torture himself…

Even in an era before the establishment of universal human rights, eighteenth century philosopher Cesare Beccaria had the right idea in denouncing the use of torture as an inhumane and ineffective form of interrogation, stating that even the guiltless “will admit guilt” if he or she believes it will make the pain stop. Ali Soufan, former FBI special agent and interrogator of al-Qaeda, denounces the use of torture in agreement with Beccaria’s theory, having seen it play out in real life…

Soufan is correct: violence and torture are the ways of groups like al-Qaeda, not the ways of the free and democratic nation that is the United States. In light of recent reports, the ongoing daily abuses of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, and the intentionally hushed release of Kiriakou we must question, as a nation founded upon a strong value in human rights, our use of such violence as a tactic for “national security” and “foreign policy…”

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For more information on The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and
the War Against al Qaeda please click here.

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To read the full article please click on the link below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sabrina-bilimoria/an-interrogation-of-our-o_b_6797378.html