by Joseph Whalen

Created on: August 28, 2009

Recognized by every civilization in the modern world as a crime against humanity, torture is an illegal act with a history of unfortunate precedents cite from. While one can argue extenuating circumstances may have led to the use of torture or necessitated it for national security, the fact of the matter remains it is an illegal act. Anyone who is proven to be complicit in the act of torture should be subject to the same laws as anyone else, regardless of what their political affiliations might be.

We consider ourselves to be living in a civilized society, while this concept is certainly questionable given the level of crime and violence in the world and our country in particular, there are rules of conduct that are expect in civilized countries. Among one of the most obvious of these rules is that we do not torture individuals. This is a necessarily uncompromising rule for very good reasons. If we start to justify such heinous crimes as torture for one reason we quickly find it very easy to justify these and even worse crimes far more easily the more we push the boundaries of civilized behavior.

All too often in our country we see special privileges and considerations granted celebrities, politicians and people of influence. To the common person some of these perks may generate a certain level of resentment and envy in most cases. When we allow such privileges to extend themselves to the point of allowing these people to operate above the law we are immediately eroding our own rights and the fundamental basis for what makes this country so great. We expect our politicians and political lackeys to be corrupt, steal from the public and put their own personal advancement above that of the people. While this is a sad but true fact, it is a reality that we have come to accept more and more in recent times. While most of the crimes and indiscretions our politicians engage in for personal gain are nothing more than petty crimes and thievery the instant we allow these acts to escalate to the level of torture and turn a blind eye is the day that we as a people have lost our way in the civilized world.

Regardless of whether it is American citizens or suspected foreign terrorist that are being tortured is no relevant. They are all human beings and a civilized people do not prey on other human beings, even if it is in the name of national security. As soon as we begin to condone the very actions of those that we consider to be our enemy is the day that we become the enemy ourselves. Or at the very least no better than the scourge that ravages the world today.

Some believe that in order to defeat the forces of terrorism we must wage a war of terrorism on them. We must adopt their techniques and tactics and take the fight directly to the enemy as they have taken it to us. No one can really say if that is the way to win the war against a shadow of an enemy, perhaps it would be effective. One thing that is for sure in adopting such a strategy, we then become the terrorists ourselves. The sacrifices of our moral code, our civility and our ethics are really not worth what little we gain by allowing the terrorists to turn us into savages. Once was become the terrorist the enemy has already won. So we must take a stand against no only those who engage in torture, but those who endorse and encourage it.

Learn more about this author, Joseph Whalen.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.