President Obama banned waterboarding in 2009, but Mohammed endured it regularly under the Bush administration. Some military officials maintain that his waterboarding proved instrumental in finding and killing Osama bin Laden, but other liberals claim that it actually produced misleading information, throwing the CIA off-track at least initially. Debate over the reliability of information obtained via torture methods fuels the anti-torture arguments of those who characterize it as cruel and unusual punishment.
Our nation’s relationship with torture seems to echo W.E.B. Dubois’ discussion of the “Negro Problem” in America. According to Dubois, the legacy of the subjugation of blacks embedded in U.S. history presented a “concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic”—namely, equality. Today, the legacy of torture is ingrained in our nation; whether we like it or not, many Americans may owe their lives to such enhanced interrogation methods. And, like the Negro Problem, torture is a test of our nation. Do we fight terrorism at all costs, or do we preserve what moral high ground we have left? Is torture worth it? That’s a question we have yet to answer.
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