“After much agonising, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one answer to Sydney’s question. Torture the wife and children.”

I can’t believe I just read that. Wtf?

Sunny,

I seem to be in agreement with you here. Although you missed what I think is the money quote from the conclusion of Anderson’s article:

[I] Torture is revolting, but we cannot substitute aesthetics for thought. Anyway, which is the greater aesthetic affront: torture, or the destruction of the National Gallery? [/I]

Human rights are apparently aesthetics then. And morality is subject to beauty (actually, I suspect philosophers might argue this, but probably using better evidence).

My only question would be what the hell is this article meant to be balancing? Did someone else produce an article suggesting we do… well I was going to say invite in the Taliban to rule us or abolish the police, but these are going to reduce human rights as well. I’m not sure what the opposite of this idiocy is.

Anderson is the resident war-mongering neo-con…

Bruce Anderson is about as far from being a neo-con as it’s possible to get without falling over. He’s a reactionary paleo-conservative. He is also a barking loon. File this column with the one where he said something like “nothing is necessarily wrong with ethnic cleansing so long as it happens in an reasonably unmurderous fashion”.

What Anderson said was totally unacceptable – and I’m sure Liddle will sort him out in due course – but the attempt to smear Cohen by association by including an entirely unrelated paragraph lifted from an article in which Cohen clearly makes out a case AGAINST torture is pathetic.

Do YOU oppose torture ON PRINCIPLE, IN ALL CIRCUMSTENCE? If so the comment ‘torture is wrong’ will suffice. Or do you oppose torture ‘BECAUSE…(insert contingent condition here)’.

‘Torture is wrong BECAUSE … it doesn’t work’ is conditional on torture never working; ‘torture is wrong BECAUSE … it provokes a worse situation’ is conditional on it provoking a worse situation; ‘torture is wrong BECAUSE … it undermines our claim to the moral highground’ or BECAUSE … It dehumanises those who use it’ are conditional on it doing so.

Cohens article clearly states the ‘BECAUSE…’ argument is not strong enough: opposition to torture should not be conditional. If you oppose torture ‘because…’ and there is a circumstance in which that ‘because…’ is not one of the conditions then you support torture in some conditions.

Anderson has form as the Indy’s reactionary of choice to tempt Daily Mail readers.

He suggested that Jean Charles De Menezes got what he deserved before waiting to find out what actually happened.

In this case, the idea that torturing the wives and children of suspected terrorists to save not millions of Londoners (who are expendable), but the National Gallery, goes beyond parody.

In his defence, if you do support torture he’s just taking it to its logical extreme.

The assumption of idiots like Anderson is that torture somehow makes people tell what they know. In fact they are more likely to say what they think their tormentors want to hear. Leaving morals aside, on a practical level torture is useless.

Anderson’s nuts should be nailed to a table just for writing such crap. He’d probably enjoy it.

I’m with Shatterface on this one. It was painful enough on the other thread that Sunny and others failed to acknowledge that they had misunderstood Nick Cohen’s argument. Holding your hand up to admit that you failed to get the point is painful but honourable.

Ignoring the comprehension failure and repeating the vile accusation about Nick Cohen is simply dishonourable.

[6] “Leaving morals aside, on a practical level torture is useless”.

Torture’s raison d’etre is not really about meaningful intelligence gathering, but rather the desire to foster terror in the mind of the ‘enemy’ – as Sherman said, “war is hell”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_Hell

Let’s not forget that torture is both universal and timeless – I wonder why that is?

I’ve created a Facebook group to protest this abhorrent idea that children should be subject to torture:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=307927163302&ref=mf

I’ve also added a link to this piece to Bruce Anderson’s wikipedia page and the Ticking timebomb wikipedia page. I think it’s worth recording this for posterity, to show where the “logic” of torture can take you. (If you’re a sick £@*$*.)

Looks like he passes what should be a new test: more right-wing and keener on torture than the head of MI5: http://www.markpack.org.uk/jonathan-evans/

Who knew MI5 was being run by such a lily-livered liberal hey?

If you read some of the ranting of the jihadist clerics, one theme that really stands out is that, apparently, the key to military victory over the West lies in eating pork. They are always asking, ‘if eating pork is required to strike a blow against the infidels, is it permissible’?

Obviously, this doesn’t make a lick of sense to a sane person. But put yourself in the mind of a nutter like Anderson, and you can start to comprehend it.

There is no logical connection between the act of torturing someone, and the goal of stopping bombs going off, any more than there is between eating pork and getting the wiring of a bomb right. It’s pure magical thinking: forbidden therefore powerful.

Now, you can set up some artificial scenario where some strange old man will say ‘I will teach you the secret of making semtex from Blutac and some common household chemicals, if only you eat this bacon sandwich’.

But clearly anyone spending time thinking about that is not driving on all four wheels. And it’s the same with the ludicrous ‘ticking bomb’ scenarios where you just happen to have a experienced torturer to hand in the 15 minutes before the digital clock counts down. Might as well specify that the torturer is only willing to work for you if you let him screw your wife, then you can fantasise about that too.

I’m with Shatterface on this one. It was painful enough on the other thread that Sunny and others failed to acknowledge that they had misunderstood Nick Cohen’s argument. Holding your hand up to admit that you failed to get the point is painful but honourable.
I apologized about that particular column, I feel you were right but I feel Cohen’s overall agenda on the use of torture is not far from Anderson’s.
Cohen other article on torture wasn’t supported torture in a cowardly roundabout way.
Of course they have similarities but also major differences.
Cohen / Anderson are men of the right but different types
Anderson is an old fashioned paleo social conservative but with neo liberal economic tendencies.
Cohen is a neoconservative, neoliberal, socially and economic liberal rightist. A South Park Republican.
The right like the left is a many hybrid beast.
Thatchers great gift was that she appealed to Porn barons such as Sullivan and evangelists such as Micheal Green.
Can Cameron appeal to both sections.
Perhaps because the Cohenites and Andersonites hate Labour so much they probably will

But what about the ticking time bomb scenario?

I hear the right-wing torture apologists scream…

If I KNEW that there was a nuclear bomb planted in the middle of (say) Oxford, and that it would go off in x minutes, and I KNEW that Smith knows the location of the bomb and I KNEW that the only way to get Smith to tell me, in time to stop the bomb going off, is to torture Smith, would I torture Smith to get the information?

Maybe I would. Maybe.

But even if I say ‘yes’ to this highly specific hypothetical, does it follow that I should accept that governments have a right – nay, duty – to torture?

No.

Why? Because I am pretty sure that once you give the green light to this practice it will be used in a range of situations very, very different from the highly specific hypothetical. The government agencies will say: ‘Maybe this person knows something that might, just possibly, at some point, give us a clue to something that might happen….What the heck! The people we’ve arrested are clearly up to something, why not use a bit of torture to get whatever info we can?’

THAT will be – has been – the reality.

And, whatever you think about the hypothetical, that reality is indefensible.

I can’t believe that people like Bruce Anderson GET PAID to write such drivel. Shame, shame on The Independent for publishing it.

THAT will be – has been – the reality.

The French war in Algeria was a classic example of that. When you make torture acceptable in ‘exceptional cases’, every case becomes ‘exceptional’. Sometimes the ‘slippery slope’ argument is absolutely true.

If we follow the righties’ advice and abandon our traditional standards (International Declaration of Human Rights, Geneva Conventions, for example) what will we be left with? Might is right? Hardly the moral high ground and an example of how to lead the world.

The notion that because we are strong we can do what we like is linked with infamy throughout history. The people most widely celebrated, the Ghandis, Mandelas, Luther-Kings and so on, set a much better example that resonates across cultures and helps us find our common humanity.

Am I merely a cosseted liberal benefiting from the moral sacrifices of Kissingers past and present? I don’t think so. So many of our current conflicts have arisen from the policies of such people. I don’t think its unreasonable to argue for being nice to people and setting a good example. Not many people seem to want to bomb Sweden, do they?

It doesn’t work.It doesn’t work.Anderson has merely revealed what a truly revolting person he is ,if anyone had ever been in any doubt.

I’m sure most of us agree that torture is a step too far in the battle of the wills, but what about international hit squads who take a out senior military figure (or terrorist depending on your point of view) with blood on his hands (allegedly)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_al-Mabhouh

Are such actions within the bounds of acceptable warfare?

I think we need to consider whether we are at war or dealing with a bunch of terrorist criminals. The Bush government needed to declare war for political reasons. We do not have to accept their definition of the current problem.

[19] I’m sure you will have anticipated this but I am getting to the Hitler scenario – if a sniper could have taken the Fuhrer out would this have been a good thing, or are ALL political figures, no mater how bad, entitled to due legal process?

If the answer is yes (to the bullet), then surely its just a matter of deciding who does or doesn’t make the hit list?

@20: There was never any doubt at all as to whether Hitler really was the Fuhrer or whether Germany was actually engaged in war though, was there? He wasn’t “Aldolf Hitler, the alleged Fuhrer of Nazi German, which some people believe to be engaged in a war with Britain”. Whereas the modern trend seems to be to assassinate people who are believed to be alleged terrorists… (Leaving the questions of “believed by whom?” and “alleged by whom?” wide open.)

You can’t really compare a formally declared war between two nation states to TWAT. It’s just not the same thing.

You can pretty easily tell the difference between metaphorical and literal war by applying the artillery test: if artillery is being fired, you are not dealing with a metaphor.

War on cancer: no documented use of howitzers.

War on poverty: mortar count pretty much zero.

War in Afghanistan: GMLRS, 105mm and 155mm howitzers, JDAM bombs, Predators, …

War on drugs?

A mix of tedious class room activities and guns.

Terrible combination.

‘[19] I’m sure you will have anticipated this but I am getting to the Hitler scenario – if a sniper could have taken the Fuhrer out would this have been a good thing, or are ALL political figures, no mater how bad, entitled to due legal process?’

Or, Operation Valkyrie – are we glad it failed?

Wot Dunc said @ 21. Although I’m confused about ‘believed’ and ‘alleged’ – I’m not sure all ‘alleged’ criminals are ‘believed’ to be criminals…

Anyway, returning to Anderson’s fantasy:

We’ve captured a known terrorist, we know he has hidden a ticking-time-bomb in a famous museum or gallery and we know we have very little time before it explodes. The terrorist says, “I was trained to resist your robust interview methods. But if you were to apply your enhanced coercive interrogation techniques to Bruce Anderson in front of me for just an hour, I would tell you not only the location of the bomb but also how to safely disarm it.”

Which is the greater aesthetic affront: Anderson, or the destruction of the National Gallery?

Ugh.
Since the Indie has willingly published this hateful shite they are welcome to Liddle et al. The left/liberal press is truly fucked (apologies for the language, but it is).