Re: Harsh tactics may have aided US raid

The Bush administration seems to hold fast to the belief that the harsh tactics used in detaining and torturing Al Qaeda members are justified. This reasoning is supported by the dreadful belief that the methods practiced in these detention facilities have principally led to the capture and annihilation of Osama bin Laden (America’s most hated terrorist leader). This naïve idea tends to be the root of the justification of many of the world’s most heinous ethical crimes.
Take for example the treatment of German citizens during the Second World War. Would it have been ethically justifiable if the Allied forces had used brutal means to torture and interrogate German citizens supposing that they had ties to the Nazis?
Though the US has gained one success—killing bin Laden—from the unethical practices in Guantanamo Bay and other detention facilities, how far beyond ethical boundaries will they be willing to go to get the information they require?
Many doctors have even begun irritable concerning the inhuman methods used by the United States in order to gain information from their captives. In a letter to The Lancet, doctors from 16 countries, including Britain and America, say the failure of the US regulatory authorities to act is “damaging the reputation of US military medicine”.
The doctors wrote: “No healthcare worker in the War on Terror has been charged or convicted of any significant offence despite numerous instances documented including fraudulent record-keeping on detainees who have died as a result of failed interrogations ... The attitude of the US military establishment appears to be one of ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’.”
The US is a rules-based system — it has a Bill of Rights and a strong Supreme Court. However, the events that have transpired in its detention facilities (especially Guantanamo bay) present serious questions. How can such a system be so damaged? How can legality be so destroyed? How can due process be so appallingly ignored?
One lesson to be learned is that even the best constitution and strongest institutions in the world are of no protection if those in power, and their influential allies, are determined to proceed with a meticulous course of action.