CIA Article

Past experiences tend to change the perception of an individual for future experiences, or sometimes even give the individual a point of view. In this article, the author discusses just how the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the USA have changed the perceptions of the CIA interrogators. And how their emotions have completely over-powered their sense of reasoning and have made them extremely biased to any form of information that they might receive. The article deals with hypocrisy and could definitely be an eye-opener to many.

A terrorist is just as human as anybody else, and has the same number of rights that any citizen of any country deserves to have. Somebody who has been affected by terrorists is going to have an extremely different perception towards them as compared to somebody who is a terrorist himself. It is exactly this clashing perception which can be seen in the article. The article claims that terrorists are mentally, emotionally as well as physically tortured by the CIA interrogators. Why is this happening? This is because the CIA is willing to go to any extent to be told what they want to hear. They are completely biased towards their evidence, and their emotions do not allow them to reason their actions out. And this evidently shows complete hypocrisy. They have chosen to do exactly the opposite of what they believe in, because they too are driven by emotions. How does this make either of them different from the other? Is torturing another individual, for whatever may be the reason, ethical?

One of the several knowledge issue that the article deals with is the use of torture every ethical? Can what the CIA is doing be justified? Can desperation be a reason to mentally traumatise another individual? Of course, somebody who has been hurt, may often want revenge of some kind. But is becoming exactly like the person you want to harm correct?

Torture is never the answer. It may give the much awaited results, but it can’t be the answer to a situation. As once said by Mahatma Gandhi - “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This is exactly what the CIA officers are doing. It’s almost like ‘tit for tat’, in the name of peace, they are only giving rise to more trauma, sorrow, hatred and betrayal in the world. This can be seen in the movie Khuda ke Liye, an innocent man is tortured to such an extent that he is forced to confess on being a terrorist even though he is not. That is what the police wanted to here, and that is what they finally got, even though it wasn’t the truth. Their motive was to harm anybody, under the assumption that they were terrorists, only to satisfy their thirst for revenge.

However, the article is very one sided. And it only talks about the trauma that the terrorists are facing. Completely failing to give any importance to the amount of torture the terrorists have put innocent people and families through. It stressed on the hypocrisy of the CIA, without giving it any credit for having gathered so much useful information over time. Whether or not, torturing those who have tortured others is ethical, is something that can be debated over for hours. It all merely depends on the individual’s perception, which more often than not is driven and guided by emotions and personal experiences.