Torture on Terrorists

Torture on Terrorists

Torture is considered to be a violation of human rights and is viewed by society as a negative thing. Torturing innocent people just for the pleasure should not be tolerated, but to those who are a threat to society should be punished. Those who are a threat to society are terrorists. Terrorists take away the lives of innocent people as if they had no feelings or remorse. Even though torture is against the United States Constitution, there should be an exception when it comes to terrorists because it does not compare to the harm that they have done to innocent people.

Michael Levin, who wrote The Case for Torture, states that “torture is barbaric, but that mass murder is far more barbaric (Fawcett 598).” Torturing one person may be unconstitutional and barbaric, but what is it when thousands of innocent people are killed? On September 11 of 2001, thousands of innocent people were killed by Islamic terrorists. People who had nothing to do with these terrorists were killed because of the orders of Osama Bin Laden. Shouldn’t this be an exception to torturing those terrorists who were responsible for the deaths of thousands of people? Mounir al-Motassadek was one of the 9/11 terrorists, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison accused for the deaths of 3,000 people. Was this enough punishment for what he did though? Joe Messerli states in his editorial that “When you contribute to the death of thousands, a punishment of painless death or life in prison just doesn't cut it. We're talking about people that will kill Americans no matter where they are or who they are, and they show no remorse for their actions (Messerli).” He is right in what he says because these terrorists kill without caring about the harm that they are doing to others, therefore they should be punished with torture.

Torture can be an exception when it comes to terrorists who have threatened or plan on threatening our country. A plus to torturing terrorists is that they...