From the excellent
daoureport, via
truthout, the
bbc reports:
The outgoing head of the US Department of Homeland Security has said torture may be used in certain cases in order to prevent a major loss of life. Speaking to the BBC, Tom Ridge said the US did not condone the use of torture to extract information from terrorists. But he said that under an "extreme set" of hypothetical circumstances, such as a nuclear threat, "it could happen".
A spokesman for Mr Ridge said his comments were taken out of context and did not amount to approval of torture.
To some, this might seem a reasonable position - Jack Bauer trying to stop a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. In practice, it leads to Abu Ghraib. Why do I say this? Because "extreme set of circumstances" means different things to different people. Is the potential death of your comrades not an extreme set of circumstances? How many potential deaths does it take to be an extreme situation? How about a theory of "potential" extreme circumstances? Sort of a corollary to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive invasions. There is no workable definition of "extreme situations, and to speak of it is to invite torture.
Mind you, this hypothetical discussion has NOTHING to do with the Bush policy of torture. There is no pretense to "extreme situations" in the Bush policy. Torture is a part of the Bush policy as a matter of course. So let's not conflate the two discussions. The Bush policy is more akin to systematic police violence for interrogation purposes. The "tuning up" of suspects.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with Alberto Gonzales' craven disregard for the Constitution, federal law and International treaties in his outrageous legal apology for the Bush torture regime. Gonzales is no policy maker - he's a government lawyer, who now is proposed as the Chief Lawyer for the Nation. It is an outrage that a craven apologist who would spit on the Constitution is considered for this post. No right thinking Democrat can support his confirmation.
Update [2005-1-16 16:48:10 by Armando]: I don't mean to imply that torture provides reliable information. The writings I've seen appear to say it does not. But even if one assumed, for the sake of argument, that it does, and even if, for the sake of argument, there was not a trumping moral objection to the practice, there are fundamental selfish reasons why we do not employ torture - because then Americans would be tortured as well.