The Torture of Foreign Prisoners †English Essay

The Torture of Foreign Prisoners – English Essay Free Online Research Papers The Torture of Foreign Prisoners English Essay The right of â€Å"innocent until proven guilty† is one of the most important rights we Americans have. Regardless if these people are enemies of the Country, they still have the same rights under our laws. Freedoms of Americans are spelled out plainly in the Constitution, guarded by our laws, and the treaties we have with other countries. Torture violates all of these guidelines. If we do not show these freedoms to people of other countries, then we do our whole country a dishonor. Torture to an enemy of the United States by the military or by any of the other Agencies is wrong and against our own laws and treaties. Our own military’s lawyers have even expressed concern over the use of torture of prisoners. The Judge Advocacy General’s Corps had three of its top lawyers expressed their conserves over this tortures legality. It seems the Military has a manual with their laws and procedures spelled out very plain as to how to teat a â€Å"Prisoner of War.† The lawyers speak and put the reasoning very plain: â€Å"but also would cause public outrage if the tactics became known.† (White). This plainly shows our own military is concerned over this abuse of prisoners. The military knows it is breaking it’s own rules. Army Col. Stuart Herrington, who is a military specialist in interrogations, who has been in Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq during Desert Storm, was sent to the prisons to check for the Pentagon. He had this to say over what was going on: â€Å"Aside from its immorality and its illegality,† says Herrington, torture is simply not a good way to get information. In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no stress methods at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the batting average might be lower: perhaps six out of ten. And if you beat up the remaining four? Theyll just tell you anything to get you to stop. (Applebaum). Her is an active Army officer that disagrees with torture. A commander who knows the wrongs of it. He had this to say about the current stories circulating around the water coolers of America. â€Å"At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.† (Applebaum). This is the story being used for validating of torture. There is no proof that this story has any truth. There is something no one has considered, the danger to our own soldiers when they are captured. Here again I quote: â€Å"Worse, youll have the other side effects of torture. It endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity. It does damage to our countrys image and undermines our credibility in Iraq.† (Applebaum) It undermines the work of our soldiers that are helping make Iraq into a country ruled by its people instead of a dictator. The use of torture robes them of their dignity and makes them into another oppressive force in a war torn country. Where did all this begin? America has always been the defender of the oppressed and downtrodden. We as a people are the defenders of freedom. And now that we have been attacked in our homeland we allow our government to break laws and rules that have been set for centuries. Pentagon officials turned to the closest thing on their organizational charts to a school for torture, a program named SERE. Out of fear of future terrorist attacks and frustrated by the slow progress of intelligence-gathering from prisoners at Guantnamo Bay, this program was changed. â€Å"That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C., known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody. (Bloche). Our Military took a school of how to survive torture and did a one hundred and eighty degree flip on it. Teachings for good were corrupted for use on the suspected terrorist. In a briefing given by General James T. Hill, he stated that a team was sent to the SERE school for this new training. â€Å"General Hill had sent this list which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees phobias to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002.† (Bloche). So by our own admittance, the US Army has now changed and started using the training that was for how to survive torture and now use it as how to do torture. Misuse of training to degrade a person that is captured is not and never will be right. SEER’s was made for helping our soldiers, not to make them into torturers. A travesty of warping good things for bad results is now the end result. The manual of the Army states exactly how a prisoner is to be treated. â€Å"While casting aside the field manual flushing it, perhaps, down those toilets into which we are assured no Quran has ever fallen President George W. Bush simultaneously refused a chance to go on record against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of anyone in U.S. government custody.† (Cocco). So it is known that the manual is being thrown ignored with this use of torture. The United States has even signed treaties with other countries banning torture of prisoners, which they are now not following. Why are all these things being ignored? One reason alone is why, the President has so ordered it. The CIA is acting under orders, as is the Military to do what ever it takes to find out information. The fifteenth and sixteenth paragraphs of an article named Military Lawyers Fought Policy on Interrogations by Josh White of the Washington Post Newspaper, puts the blame exactly where it belongs on who is responsible for this. â€Å"In 2002, the State Departments legal adviser expressed concerns that the Bush administration had ignored the Geneva Conventions in deciding how to treat captured members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Because such captives have been categorized as enemy combatants and not prisoners of war, the administration has said the conditions of their detention are not governed by the Geneva Conventions, though they would be treated humanely. The abuse at Guantanamo Bay has been reported several times in the news. The use of military trained dogs for intimidation and torture is just another atrocity that has come to light. â€Å"They were considered authorized by the Army field manual and Defense Department guidance and were therefore not considered abusive. Identical tactics were later used at Iraqs Abu Ghraib prison by military police officers who were not authorized to employ them.†(White). Using any means possible to find out information to stop terrorist is counterproductive. No valid proof of it working can be found anywhere. There are no cases where any information gained was valid. Any other country in the world would not allow the use of torture to find out information. So why does the United States? So the laws are set, the treaties have been signed, the Code of Conduct manuals have been written, lawyers have complained, as has Congressmen, and still the inhuman acts of torture go on. The common person in the streets, know the wrongness of it. So why does the President still allow torture? References Applebaum, Anne. â€Å"The Torture Myth.† The Washing Post Company. January 12, 2005. Copyright 1996-2005. Blouch, M. Gregg. Marks, Jonathan H. â€Å"Do Unto Others as They did Unto Us.† The New York Times Company. November 14, 2005. Copyright 2005. Cocco, Marie. â€Å"Torturing Prisoners? Not by the Book.† Common Dreams News Center. Copyrighted 2005. Newsday, Inc August 2, 2005. White, Josh. â€Å"Military Lawyers fought Policy on Interrogations.† The Washington Post Company. July 15, 2005. Page A01.Copyright 1996-2005. Research Papers on The Torture of Foreign Prisoners - English Essay19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraUnreasonable Searches and SeizuresCapital PunishmentPETSTEL analysis of IndiaDefinition of Export QuotasThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationGenetic EngineeringComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoHip-Hop is ArtHonest Iagos Truth through Deception

Lucy Stone, Abolitionist and Womens Rights Reformer

Lucy Stone, Abolitionist and Women's Rights Reformer Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818–October 18, 1893)  was the first woman in Massachusetts to earn a college degree and the first woman in the United States to keep her own name after marriage. While she started out on the radical edge of womens rights at the beginning of her speaking and writing career, shes usually described as a leader of the conservative wing of the suffrage movement in her later years. The woman whose speech in 1850 converted Susan B. Anthony to the suffrage cause later disagreed  with Anthony over strategy and tactics, splitting the suffrage movement into two major branches after the Civil War. Fast Facts: Lucy Stone Known For: A major figure in the abolitionist and womens rights movements of the 1800sBorn: August 13, 1818 in West Brookfield, MassachusettsParents: Hannah Matthews and Francis StoneDied: October 18, 1893 in Boston, MassachusettsEducation: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Oberlin CollegeAwards and Honors:  Inducted into National Womens Hall of Fame; the subject of a U.S. postal stamp; statue placed in Massachusetts State House; featured in the Boston Womens Heritage TrailSpouse(s): Henry Browne BlackwellChildren: Alice Stone BlackwellNotable Quote: I believe that the influence of woman will save the country before every other power. Early Life Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on her familys Massachusetts farm in West Brookfield. She was the eighth of nine children, and as she grew up, she watched as her father ruled the household, and his wife, by divine right. Disturbed when her mother had to beg her father for money, she was also unhappy with the lack of support in her family for her education. She was faster at learning than her brothers, but they were to be educated while she was not. She was inspired in her reading by the Grimke sisters, who were abolitionists as well as proponents of womens rights. When the Bible was quoted to her, defending the positions of men and women, she declared that when she grew up, shed learn Greek and Hebrew so she could correct the mistranslation that she was sure was behind such verses. Education Her father would not support her education, so she alternated her own education with teaching to earn enough to continue. She attended several institutions, including Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1839. By age 25 four years later, she had saved enough to fund her first year at Oberlin College in Ohio, the countrys first college to admit both women and blacks. After four years of study at Oberlin College, all the while teaching and doing housework to pay for the costs, Lucy Stone graduated in 1847. She was asked to write a commencement speech for her class, but she refused because someone else would have had to read her speech because women were not allowed, even at Oberlin, to give a public address. Shortly after Stone, the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree, returned to her home state, she gave her first public speech. The topic was womens rights and she delivered the speech from the pulpit of her brothers Congregational Church in Gardner, Massachusetts. Thirty-six years after she graduated from Oberlin, she was an honored speaker at Oberlins 50th-anniversary celebration. The American Anti-Slavery Society A year after she graduated, Lucy Stone was hired as an organizer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In this paid position, she traveled and gave speeches on abolition and womens rights. William Lloyd Garrison, whose ideas were dominant in the Anti-Slavery Society, said of her during her first year of working with the organization, She is a very superior young woman, and has a soul as free as the air, and is preparing to go forth as a lecturer, particularly in vindication of the rights of women. Her course here has been very firm and independent, and she has caused no small uneasiness in the spirit of sectarianism in the institution. When her womens rights speeches created too much controversy within the Anti-Slavery Society- some wondered whether she was diminishing her efforts on behalf of the abolition cause- she arranged to separate the two ventures, speaking on weekends on abolition and weekdays on womens rights, and charging admission for the speeches on womens rights. In three years, she earned $7,000 with these talks. Radical Leadership Stones radicalism on both abolition and womens rights brought large crowds. The talks also drew hostility: according to historian Leslie Wheeler, people tore down the posters advertising her talks, burned pepper in the auditoriums where she spoke, and pelted her with prayer books and other missiles. Having been convinced by using the Greek and Hebrew she learned at Oberlin that indeed the Biblical proscriptions on women were badly translated, she challenged those rules in churches that she found to be unfair to women. Raised in the Congregational Church, she was unhappy with its refusal to recognize women as voting members of congregations as well as their condemnation of the Grimke sisters for their public speaking. Finally expelled by the Congregationalists for her views and public speaking, she joined with the Unitarians. In 1850, Stone was a leader in organizing the first national womans rights convention, held in Worcester, Massachusetts. The 1848 convention in Seneca Falls had been an important and radical move, but the attendees were mostly from the local area. This was the next step. At the 1850 convention, Lucy Stones speech is credited with converting Susan B. Anthony to the cause of woman suffrage. A copy of the speech, which was sent to England, inspired John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor to publish The Enfranchisement of Women. Some years later, she also convinced Julia Ward Howe to adopt womens rights as a cause along with abolition. Frances Willard credited Stones work with her joining the suffrage cause. Marriage and Motherhood Stone had thought of herself as a free soul who would not marry; then she met Cincinnati businessman Henry Blackwell in 1853 on one of her speaking tours. Henry was seven years younger than Lucy and courted her for two years. Henry was anti-slavery and  pro-womens  rights. His eldest sister  Elizabeth Blackwell  (1821–1910), became the first woman physician in the United States, while another sister,  Emily Blackwell  (1826–1910), became a physician as well. Their brother Samuel later married  Antoinette Brown  (1825–1921), a friend of Lucy Stones at Oberlin and the first woman ordained as a minister in the United States. Two years of courtship and friendship convinced Lucy to accept Henrys offer of marriage. Lucy was especially impressed when he rescued a fugitive slave from her owners. She wrote to him, A wife should no more take her husbands name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost. Henry agreed with her. I wish, as a husband, to  renounce  all the privileges which the  law  confers upon me, which are not strictly  mutual. Surely  such a marriage  will not degrade you, dearest. And so,  in 1855, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell married. At the ceremony, Minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson read  a statement by the bride and groom, renouncing and protesting the marriage laws of the time, and announcing that she would keep her name. Higginson published the ceremony widely with their permission. The couples daughter Alice Stone Blackwell was born in 1857. A son died at birth; Lucy and Henry had no other children. Lucy retired for a short period from active touring and public speaking and devoted herself to raising her daughter. The family moved from Cincinnati to New Jersey. In a letter written to her sister-in-law Antoinette Blackwell on February 20, 1859, Stone wrote, ...for these years I can only be a mother- no trivial thing, either. The next year, Stone refused to pay property taxes on her home. She and Henry carefully kept her property in her name, giving her independent income during their marriage. In her statement to the authorities, Lucy Stone protested the taxation without representation that women still endured, since women had no vote. The authorities seized some furniture to pay the debt, but the gesture was widely publicized as symbolic on behalf of womens rights. Split in the Suffrage Movement Inactive in the suffrage movement during the Civil War, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell became active again when the war ended and the  Fourteenth Amendment  was proposed, giving the vote to black men. For the first time, the Constitution would, with this Amendment, mention male citizens explicitly. Most woman suffrage activists were outraged. Many saw the possible passage of this Amendment as setting back the cause of woman suffrage. In 1867, Stone again went on a full lecture tour to Kansas and New York, working for woman suffrage state amendments, trying to work for both black and woman suffrage. The woman suffrage movement split on this and other strategic grounds. The  National Woman Suffrage Association, led by  Susan B. Anthony  and  Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided to oppose the  Fourteenth Amendment because of the language male citizen. Lucy Stone,  Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Blackwell led those who sought to keep the causes of black and woman suffrage together, and in 1869 they and others founded the  American Woman Suffrage Association. For all her radical reputation, Lucy Stone was identified in this later period with the conservative wing of the woman suffrage movement. Other differences in strategy between the two wings included the AWSAs following a strategy of state-by-state suffrage amendments and the NWSAs support of a national constitutional amendment. The AWSA remained largely  middle  class,  while the NWSA embraced working-class issues and members. The Womens Journal The next year, Lucy raised enough funds to start a suffrage weekly newspaper,  The Womans Journal. For the first two years, it was edited by  Mary Livermore, and then Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell became the editors. Lucy Stone found working on a newspaper far more compatible with family life than the lecture circuit. But I do believe that a womans truest place is in a home, with a husband and with children, and with large freedom, pecuniary freedom, personal freedom, and the right to vote. Lucy Stone to her adult daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell Alice Stone Blackwell attended Boston University, where she was one of two women in a class with 26 men. She later got involved with  The Womans Journal,  which survived until 1917. Alice was the sole editor during its later years. The Womans Journal  under Stone and Blackwell maintained a Republican Party line, opposing, for instance, labor movement organizing and strikes and  Victoria Woodhulls  radicalism, in contrast to the Anthony-Stanton NWSA. Last Years Lucy Stones radical move to keep her own name continued to inspire and enrage. In 1879, Massachusetts gave women a limited right to vote for the school committee. In Boston, however, the registrars refused to let Lucy Stone vote unless she used her husbands name. She continued to find that, on legal documents and when registering with her husband at hotels, she had to sign as Lucy Stone, married to Henry Blackwell, for her signature to be accepted as valid. Lucy Stone did, in the 1880s, welcome Edward Bellamys American version of Utopian socialism, as did many other woman suffrage activists. Bellamys vision in the book  Looking Backward  drew a vivid picture of a society with economic and social equality for women. In 1890, Alice Stone Blackwell, now a leader in the woman suffrage movement in her own right, engineered a reunification of the two competing suffrage organizations. The National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association united to form the  National American Woman Suffrage Association, with  Elizabeth Cady Stanton  as president,  Susan B. Anthony  as vice president, and Lucy Stone as chairman of the executive committee. In an 1887 speech to the New England Womans Club, Stone said: I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned.   Death Stones voice had already faded and she rarely spoke to large groups later in her life. But in 1893, she gave  lectures at the Worlds Columbian Exposition. A few months later, she died in Boston of cancer and was cremated. Her last words to her daughter were Make the world better. Legacy Lucy Stone is less well known today than  Elizabeth Cady Stanton,  Susan B. Anthony, or  Julia Ward Howe, whose Battle Hymn of the Republic helped immortalize her name. Stones daughter Alice Stone Blackwell published her mothers biography,  Lucy Stone, Pioneer of Womans Rights,  in 1930, helping to keep her name and contributions known. But Lucy Stone is still remembered today primarily as the first woman to keep her own name after marriage. Women who follow that custom are sometimes called Lucy Stoners. Sources Adler, Stephen J. and Lisa Grunwald. Womens Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present. New York: Random House, 2005.â€Å"Lucy Stone.† National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.â€Å"Lucy Stone.† National Womens History Museum.McMillen, Sally G. Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life. Oxford University Press, 2015.Wheeler, Leslie. Lucy Stone: Radical Beginnings. Spender, Dale (ed.). Feminist Theorists: Three Centuries of Key Women Thinkers. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983