On March 11th 2004 Spain was struck by terrorist attacks. The Atocha train station in the capital city Madrid was the scene of the attacks. Ten bombs were placed on four trains and timed to go off as the predominantly working class commuters were in rush hour. More bombs, timed to go off when rescuers entered the wreckage, were defused by police. Two hundred Spanish civilians were killed, making this the worst attack on the west since the September 11th attacks.
Initial blame from the government was on ETA, a Basque separatist group campaigning for independence from Spain and France, but ETA has since categorically denied involvement. There is evidence pointing for and against ETA involvement;.
Al Qaeda has also been blamed. The meticulous planning and spectacular nature of the bombings follow the hallmarks of Al Qaeda. A tape also has surfaced of a man talking in Moroccan accented Arabic claiming responsibility on behalf of Al Qaeda, and says the bombings "were a response to the crimes you have caused the world, concretely in Afghanistan." This would be a reference to the Spanish government's gung ho support for the American-led war on terror, and the one thousand Spanish troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. However there is also evidence pointing against Al Qaeda involvement.
The central ethical issue in this event is whether it is right for people to be killed. The Muslim or Basque terrorists may feel they have a right to kill because using parts of the Utilitarian and Social Contract theories, they could reason it was justified. The Spaniards on the other hand could use the same theories to prove they shouldn't have been targeted.
The terrorists could use the guiding principle of Utilitarianism, .
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"This principle requires that whenever we have a choice between alternative actions or social policies, we must choose the one that has the best overall consequences for everyone concerned.
Once torture is justified in an extreme case, it can be more easily justified for less serious cases. ... Do we or do we not torture the terrorist? ... First, one assumes that the bomb actually exists. ... This cannot be certain by any means; what if the terrorist cannot disarm the bomb? ... This could be justified in the sense that the man may be part of the terrorist group, and they may be planning an attack, and if Mr. ...
In his article "The Case for Torture," Michael Levin tries to show that it is morally mandatory to torture in certain extreme situations, specifically when a terrorist has information about a bomb which is set to go off soon and which, if detonated, would result in the deaths of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people. ... Finally, Levin's claim that torture is justified because the terrorist puts himself in harm's way voluntarily is problematic. ... If we cannot be sure that we have got the right person who has the information or that there really is a bomb set to go off...
In Hiroshima John Berger explains the lives of the Japanese after the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima. I personally view that action as a terrorist attack. ... In my eyes all the survivors of the Middle East are very similar to the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. ... It really saddens me to think that those innocent people had to go through all those horrific events that none of us could ever fathom which is just like what happened to the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing "In reality- the reality to which the survivors and the dead bear witness- it can never be justified...
What if we knew where one of the two terrorists where before the hijacking, and he knew where the other terrorist was, but would not talk. ... Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? ... What if a group of terrorist planted bombs on all of the bridges in New York? ... What if a terrorist planted a bomb in the stadium on the day of the World Series or the Super Bowl? ... Once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases, you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them. ...
America was justified in doing this by the Just war theory. ... All in All America is justified by the Just War Theory to go in to war with the Al Queda. ... Then in 1975 a bomb was planted in fraunces tavern killing four and injuring more than 50 people. ... One of the more publicized events was the bombings of Timothy McVeith, who bombed a federal office building in Oklahoma City. ... The bombings in New York City killed more people than the attack on pearl harbor did by the Japanese. ...
But is the use of evil in situations like these justified??? ... The outcome of the supposedly 'justified' act is no longer seen as "good", but as necessarily and predominantly evil. ... The airforce bombs the targeted factories- killing all the workers inside. ... The terrorist, being a stubborn man, refused to tell the police about the locations of the bomb attacks and the human targets the group was to 'destroy'. ... Clearly, the 500 saved lives were worth more than a single life (that of the terrorist) and so the act is, to an extent, morally justified. ...
The War on Terror is a military effort to eliminate terrorism as well as the funding of terrorist cells throughout the world. ... Innocent people are usually targeted in terrorist acts. ... It is possible that Osama bin Laden felt his motives were justified as self-defense for the wrongs the U.S. has done to the Middle East. ... For example, every time a "smart bomb" is dropped, a point is proven that these bombs are actually "not smart" at all. Furthermore, early in the war a Red Cross building in Kabul was hit twice by stray U.S. bombs. ...
Remember the terrorist attack on September 11 2001, when al-Qaeda hijacked airplanes to fly into government buildings like the world trade center, or the attack at the Boston marathon when the bombs exploded at the end of the marathon. ... Levin's scenarios are a nuclear bomb set to go off imminently, with the terrorist in custody refusing to give up the bombs location, and a bomb on a plane again with the terrorist in custody. ... The articles have some similarties, and one of the similarities was how they use terrorist to explain there views on torture. ... The use of torture can be jus...