ABSTRACT
The events of 9/11 revived a long-resolved question: Can torture be justified? Anchored in the Geneva Conventions as well as subsequent refinements, the widely accepted position was that freedom from the intentional infliction of severe suffering was a human right. Torture could never be justified. In the years immediately following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the diverted flight crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, assessments shifted. Fissures developed in the social landscape as some persons were defined as threatening, dehumanized evil. New moral priorities were set and revised boundaries of tolerable suffering were drawn. Final resolution was elusive and tension remained.
