It was the spring of my junior year in high school and I was sitting with my classmates in my humanities class. Our teacher liked to spark debate between us and asked us whether it was right or not to torture the terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. It was a little less than the 9 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks but like many other Americans, I still had much hatred and anger towards the men who took thousands of innocent lives.
I immediately voiced my opinion that we should torture them because of what they intend to do to our people and way of life. I explained that they would show no mercy to our soldiers and they would do the same, if not worse. I continued to be stubborn minded and block out all the other perspectives and retort all their support. I continued to believe this way for awhile until I started to see the issue in the other sense. I watched the movie Rendition, a film about a man wrongly accused of being a terrorist and is tortured outside of the U.S (See 1st and 2nd link below). It is a graphic story and shows you what it might be like if someone could be falsely accused. It made me think of how I would feel if I were in that position. I also looked more into the matter and found that prominent politician, J0hn McCain, who was also a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is strongly against the U.S. torturing terror suspects (see 3rd link below).
Through the lens of film and the thoughts of a politician I started to see the humanity in not lowering ourselves to the level of terrorists. We are better and are capable of retaining information from terrorists in a more peaceful and humane manner. It is easy to let emotions drive your logic and reason but when looking at a subject from another perspective can be enlightening.
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