Abu ghraib

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In reference to its origin, on August 1st, 2002 a memorandum was sent from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, with the Office of Legal Counsel in the US Justice Department to Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the president. The memo was written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance with the purpose to provide President Bush with a rationale and justification on the use of torture on potential Al Qaeda terrorists in order to extract information. The value of the source lies in the fact that the memo derived straight from the US Government and was drafted by President Bush’s legal advisors therefore contains reliable information. Since the document was never supposed to be revealed to the public, it provides a behind the scenes look into the intentions of the US government and how they felt at the time, which then makes the source very valuable. However since the purpose of the memo was to advise President Bush that the use of torture on Al Qaeda terrorists should be justified, the persuasive nature of the memo could lead to certain information being withheld to increase the argument’s strength, which then becomes a limitation.

Source 2: Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
In reference to the origin, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib is a documentary film, directed by Rory Kennedy and first aired on HBO in 2007. This documentary examines the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib and was produced for the purpose of informing and giving viewers an inside look on the truth behind the scandal. The fact that Kennedy interviews and uses first hand accounts of soldiers who used to work at Abu Ghraib prison and also of those who were detained and tortured increases its value since it presents two sides of the story from opposing viewpoints. Raw footage and ...

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From the evidence presented and the analysis, it would be fair to conclude that the ill-treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison stemmed from a combination of failure on Bush’s administration, as well as a lack of moral judgment and sensibility on the members of the military unit station at the prison. Official government memos provide evidence that top officials did in fact authorize the use of torture to extract information from detainees but the nature of the photographs make us question whether the soldiers enjoyed carrying out the abuses. However if one were to take sides, the actions of low-ranking soldiers could only be held accountable based on the actions of their authorities and leadership, therefore the majority of the blame of the incident at Abu Ghraib should be attributed to the higher ranking officials on the Bush administration.

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