CIA - Author explores CIA connections to torture tactics - Alfred McCoy, a professor of history at UW-Madison, has written a book about the CIA's psychological torture methods, which originated in the 1950's, and which McCoy claims were practiced in Abu Ghraid Prison.
In order to fight for the common defence, to keep the country safe, information must be obtained about those who wish to inflict harm upon the nation. The CIA's pyschological torture, if and only if it exploited the weakmindedness of compromising individuals in a mental manner, in order to gain information vital to the nation's security, would it began to be justified. Torture would fall under cruel and unusual punishment, but the constitution protects only the citizens of the United States, and certainly not those who are not citizens of it and upon it wish ill will. Hence, pyschological torture can be justified, at least, in a myopic sense: the weak pysche of the victim leads to their ultimate suffering, and if the torturers are not without restraint, this can be done efficiently to the point of obtaining what is needed from the victims. Yet, in no way should this be endorsed upon the innocent for cruel pleasure. Only on the individuals posing a serious threat, and who may, at a very high possibility, possess vital information, should this method be exercised. One does not necessarily have to interpret psychological torture as a way of caustically destroying the victim's emotions and thoughts, but as a way to make the individual feel surrounded and without hope, leaving them only one option: cooperation. Only in this way would pyschological torture begin to be justified, if at all.