Evidence? Court? Law? I smell a category mistake. If we're talking about unlawful belligerents whose operational aim is to cause mass civilian casualties, criminal law is irrelevant. The perps are neither soldiers nor common criminals. If crushing their elbows in a vise or pumping ice water over broken teeth extracts life-saving information, fine. Going squeamish over self-defense measures is a sign of ennervation and decadence, not civilization.

I saw a survey yesterday that said that 61% of Americans and over half of the British and French would approve of torture under some circumstances.

I think the challenge is getting people to come to agreement on what constitutes torture and as well, as Axel points out, to whom it should apply. The western press has done a very effective job of confusing the term by conflating harsh treatment, sleep deprivation, etc., with torture. As a result we have 'cheapened' the value of the word to the point where few common people can really grasp true torture.

The way the press tosses around torture, war crimes, attrocities, etc., puts us in real danger of losing the real, powerful, meaning of the words. The goings on at Abu Grahib for example, while criminal under the UCMJ are not attrocities or torture. Babi Yar was an attrocity, Bergen-Belsen was a war crime, Pol Pot was a war criminal. Labelling things like Abu Grahib this way risks reducing the meaning of Auschwitz to the the level of a fraternity prank, a very dangerous cheapening of the impact of words.

I am stunned. And ecstatic to see a return of justice and sanity to the courts.

However I wonder how long before the govrnment tries to overturn the ruling at Condy's request (because we should trust her implicitly)

I'll have to agree with Johnathan here. If we cannot demonstrate that we are morally superior to the cannibal, it is our responsibility to let the cannibal dismember us and have us for lunch. What is the point of continuing to exist if we cannot be true to our principles?

... criminal law is irrelevant ...

Never mnore so relevant as for people with that sort of opinion I think. If you begin to use torture on anyone you are starting on a very slippery downward slope, before too long those tactics are filtered back into interrogation of 'normal' criminals.

If crushing their elbows in a vise or pumping ice water over broken teeth extracts life-saving information

And that works, does it?

The Provisional IRA had a tactic that regardless of what was done to them they had to stay quiet for a minimum 48 hour period, which was enough time for their 'cell' to be dismantled. Undoubtedly some severe interrogation methods (although I doubt as unpleasant as your somewhat fertile imagination can conjure up) were used to try and breach that 48-hour imposed rule but I have yet to hear of any IntCorps people, RUC or security services people who managed to break that time limit.

And the French in Algeria very successfully used torture to dismantle the FLN in the 1950s. It came back to bite them a couple years later however. But don't say it doesn't work. It does. 48 hours is a long, long time when you are being given the "water cure".

John Steele,

Perhaps you might link us to the survey so that we can see how they phrased the target questions? I've seen an opinion poll that says 86% of people in the UK want an ID card. I've also seen a YouGov poll that states that 79% of the population is sure that Tony Blair is the right Prime Minister, despite a General Election to the contrary. I very, very much doubt that anyone is going to say "yes I am in complete favour of using pliers on people to extract a confession" ...

What will happen is that the opposition will define torture for us,Koran abuse,interrogation by women.

A question if there was a drug which made a suspect talk and had no side effects,was not painfull,would that be construed as torture?

Is anybody willing to spell out the price they will pay to eschew torture?

JT: Undoubtedly some severe interrogation methods (although I doubt as unpleasant as your somewhat fertile imagination can conjure up) were used to try and breach that 48-hour imposed rule but I have yet to hear of any IntCorps people, RUC or security services people who managed to break that time limit.

No real imagination, fertile or otherwise, is required here - it's all been done before. All we have to do is look at the modern record. The Sri Lankans have a method involving a few droplets of gasoline in a plastic bag that is placed over the suspect's head and then cinched at the neck. The Chinese have used splints under the fingernails, which produces excruciating pain, but no permanent damage.

Remember this - the IRA was about political murders of soldiers and government figures - the terrorists are about large scale mass murder. The civilians killed in a single Muslim terrorist attack in London were more than those killed in a half-dozen IRA attacks. The 3,000 dead on September 11 were more than those killed in all of the IRA activity in Britain over decades.

Even if I have to be as ruthless as the Muslim, that doesn't mean I have assumed his identity. I mean - if we exterminate the Muslim population of the world save one - that one survivor isn't exactly going to gloat "Good - we succeeded - they became just like us". He's going to be crying in his soup, or livid with hatred. And that's fine with me.

"The broader point for me is that there is not much point trying to defend civilisation if we use barbaric methods."

Presumably, bombing a city like Falluja to a smithereen is not barbaric. I don't quite follow the logic of those who think it's OK to kill terrorists but barbaric to torture them. Let us be clear: if 3000 lives are at stake and torture stands a decent chance of saving them, liberal democratic governments would actually torture. Those that don't would be failing their primary responsibility to their citizens: that is, their safety and security. In such a situation, civilisation may very well depend on whether torture has furnished enough intelligence to thwart the terrorist carnage.

The trouble with the absolutist position on torture - i.e., it can't ever be justified - is that it imagines the right action doesn't contain evil. This, in practice, is easily refuted. War is one clear example. Or, rather, the so-called 'just wars'.

My own view is this: in principle, as a liberal, torture can't be right; in practice, it can HARDLY ever be right. That is to say, necessity may force us, in extreme and exceptional circumstances, to eschew our moral objections to torture and torture those who seek to annihilate as many innocents as possible. Recall that a core objective of the terrorist is not only to kill as many as possible; but, more important, to create chaos as a result of the carnage. What do you think would be the reaction of the populace upon realisation that the nearly 3000 lives lost at the Twin Towers could have been saved had the state tortured a detained suspected terrorist? This is not going to create civil order or trust - modicum of which, dare i say, is a necessity - for modern gov'ts to function, let alone for civilisation to continue as normal.

Having actually met and listened carefully to some of these jihadists in the late 1990s in the West African sub-region, especially around Liberia and S/Leone (where they were trying to gain a foothold and forged an unholy alliance with Taylor and Sankoh), i know for a fact that the West is faced with a threat that most liberals continue to underestimate out of sheer ignorance. This, in part, explains most objectors' quixotic objections to torture. I write this as a non- Westerner.

When we torture a terrorist, we put him through a painful process that he endures until he tells us what we need from him. When we kill a terrorist, we take away from him all he has and all he will ever have. If it is permissible for our soldiers to kill a terrorist to prevent him from taking their lives, it is equally permissible for our soldiers to torture a terrorist to prevent him from taking the lives of our civilians. I would like to think that the lives of our civilians are at least as important as the lives of our military men.

When Antonin Scalia is particularly uppity about people taking him to task for his peculiar form of (strictly consequentialist) "originalism," he inevitably barks, "well, England never had the Exclusionary Rule either."

So much for that line of reasoning.

Anyone who believes evidence from torture must surely also believe the confessions from the medieval witch-trials, that they consort with Satan, fly by means of an ointment, converse with demonic animals, etc etc.

JM: Anyone who believes evidence from torture must surely also believe the confessions from the medieval witch-trials, that they consort with Satan, fly by means of an ointment, converse with demonic animals, etc etc.

Evidence from confessions that lead to weapons caches, IED's, etc is eminently checkable. A weapons cache is either there or it isn't. An IED is there or it isn't. Using evidence obtained by torture doesn't mean we suspend the normal rules of investigative procedure whereby things are checked and cross-checked - by people who are not the interrogator.

We get voluntary confessions without torture all the time. We still check them to make sure that these guys actually did carry out what they claim to have carried out. There are details that only the bad guys would know. Taping the interrogations is a way of making sure that the questions are open-ended - that interrogator isn't suggesting answers to the prisoner.

JM: Anyone who believes evidence from torture must surely also believe the confessions from the medieval witch-trials, that they consort with Satan, fly by means of an ointment, converse with demonic animals, etc etc.

JM is confusing things that aren't verifiable with things that are. A bomb is either there or it isn't. He's also confusing issues of religion with issues of life-and-death. If someone believes in Satanism or Communism - that's a matter of religion. A Muslim terrorist isn't someone minding his own business - it is his personal mission in life to kill as many non-Muslim civilians as possible.

Making a blanket statement like "torture doesn't work" or equating the information gained from it to admissions of witchcraft is the height of idiocy.

Torture in fact, does work. Almost every time it works, because no matter your pain threshold it isn't enough to let you ignore a determined torturer. The problem is, however, that the interrogator needs to be aware that you have some relatively specific information that can be extracted. It does little good to torture the hell out of someone and just say, "Tell us what you know". You have zero idea what that person actually does know.

On the other hand, if you know that that person has some vital information, such as where weapons or a bomb are, who his confederates are, or who/what the target of an operation is, you can be relatively sure that you'll be able to get it out of them with the proper force applied.

Remember this - the IRA was about political murders of soldiers and government figures - the terrorists are about large scale mass murder.

So, Zhang Fei, the IRA were not about large-scale terrorism? You could have fooled me on that point, but then again I guess terrorism where men and women in New York, Paris, Baghdad, Moscow, Benghazi, Boston or Chicago have no problem supporting it is different to Islamic fundamental terrorism, no?

He's also confusing issues of religion with issues of life-and-death.

You seriously can not believe that statement can you? What the hell do you think your average Muslim terrorist is detonating himself for, glory of his God or just his earthly desire for 72 houris?

One reason I am against torture of suspects, for whatever reason at all, is because millions of men and women in this country, in France, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, the USA and a myriad of others have fought and died in just the past 100 years opposing the mentality that allows animals to get away with torturing others - to whit the Gestapo, the SS, the Kempeitai and other state terrorist organisations. When we start allowing our police or bureaucrats to torture people we dial the clock back on the advances that so many of those people gave their lives for - naming what we call our civilisation.

Torture is so contrary to our sense of morality that the cost of the decision to use it must be potentially very high.

I will not say it never works, nor will I say it should never be used, but I will say it should never be legal.

This is a good decision.

"Anyone who believes evidence from torture must surely also believe the confessions from the medieval witch-trials, that they consort with Satan.."

Seems Julian Morrison did the same mistake the LawLords did:
Torture isn't used on terrorist to extract a confession of their guilt which will then be used as evidence in court to convict them - which seems to be what the Law Lords ruled against.

Torture is used to extract information about other terrorist cells, about caches of explosives, about planned operations - with the aim of preventing further acts of terrorism.
The conviction of the terrorist is of secondary importance; indeed - torture would be unacceptable for this end.

I am not absolutely against torture and am certainly not absolutely for it. I can imagine a circumstance where a kidnapper, for instance, has got one of my daughters hidden away and I've managed to catch him in the act of picking up the ransom money. If I knew he had vital information that would help me get my daughter back unharmed then I would use whatever method I could think of to get that information out of him. Begining with just asking him for it and progressing rapidly to more forceful means.

Likewise I would do the same in circumstances that could affect the lives of other people unrelated to me. But in either case I would need to know first that the person was actually in possession of vital information and not just a "muslim" or someone I assumed to be a terrorist.

Should we trust the state with the ability to torture. Well they have a great record on pensions, education, getting into wars,.... I don't think so.

But Johnathan was talking about the use of so called evidence obtained through torture being used in a criminal court. I agree with him as far as that goes. But I don't think the Law Lords decision does not mean that the government won't use torture or evidence from torture in some other way that won't be submitted to a criminal court.

Sorry, somebody is going to have to define torture for me before I spend any of my precious, dwindling supply of outrage.

Anybody ever gotten a good snootful of tear gas? Dear Jesus, that hurts! I fail to see how we can consider applying something so egregiously ouchy an everyday method to disperse a crowd, while putting panties on a Muslim's head is unconscionably barbaric. Define your terms, and I'll make up my mind.

Of course, in any case, evidence obtained in this way wouldn't be admissible in court. In the US, the police sometimes find tools such as hypnosis and the polygraph useful in getting suspects to talk (whether they're intrinsically anything more than voodoo is another question), but such evidence is inadmissible in court.

I thought it was just me whose mind had flagged the obvious bollocks in their Lordships' verdict today. But I'm relieved to see that the sainted Janet Daley thinks the same (Question Time BBC 1 tonight.)

Just how is a government supossed to prove the negative - that torture was not used to gain evidence?

We appear to have a generation of judges who spent a little too much of their youths on Aldermarston marches.

Torture is repugnant unless.................
Abortion is repugnant unless...................
(Fill in your pet immorality) is repugnant unless..........
Have you stopped beating your wife?

The rule of law has had a good day today.

Not quite. To follow on from GCooper, Janet Daley enlightened us this evening on Question Time - the Law Lords decreed that when an allegation of torture is made in gaining evidence from a suspect, the government must prove that torture was not used. I think we can all see how the correct order of things has been perverted by the esteemed Law Lords here.

Then again, the government's own record of playing fast and loose with ancient legal principles and its squealing over this brings to mind the words 'hoist', 'own' and 'petard'.

JT: One reason I am against torture of suspects, for whatever reason at all, is because millions of men and women in this country, in France, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, the USA and a myriad of others have fought and died in just the past 100 years opposing the mentality that allows animals to get away with torturing others - to whit the Gestapo, the SS, the Kempeitai and other state terrorist organisations.

Millions of men did not die to oppose the mentality of the Gestapo, the SS, the Kempeitai, etc. They died defending their countries, not because of any high-flown philosophical differences, but to ensure that their kith and kin would not become part of any of the Axis empires. The Allies employed torture against their enemies, burned their cities down, killed millions of enemy civilians via incendiary and nuclear bombs and summarily shot enemy soldiers found wandering behind their lines as spies.

Our culture has as much of a right to existence as our enemies' - if they attack us, it is our duty to posterity and to those who bequeathed us our civilization to use every means at our disposal to wipe our enemies out. High-flown rhetoric aside, torture is much less inhumane than homicide - if we have no problem with killing the enemy, we shouldn't have any problem with torturing him.

JT: When we start allowing our police or bureaucrats to torture people we dial the clock back on the advances that so many of those people gave their lives for - naming what we call our civilisation.

These people did not give their lives for any notional advances - they gave their all for la patrie. They died that their countries might live. What JT calls civilizational advances had nothing to do with it. This is why they had no problem with burning the enemy's cities down and smiting their civilians hand and foot with incendiary and nuclear bombs.

Besides, to say that torturing the enemy is less civilized than killing him is just wrong - the first lasts only just as long as it takes to extract information, whereas the second is forever. A tortured terrorist might feel pain for weeks or months, whereas a dead terrorist is forever dead. If we can justify killing a terrorist, we can justify torturing him.

One of the few things that Blair and his merry band of authoritarians have been desperately trying to achieve is a suitably cowed and submissive judiciary to their will and what their Lordships demonstrated today is that they are still, in some ways, independent of Blair and Falconer's control. I don't quite see how the government be hoist upon its own petard in this case, but anything that rubs Blair's face in his own spew certainly gets my vote.

JM: So, Zhang Fei, the IRA were not about large-scale terrorism? You could have fooled me on that point, but then again I guess terrorism where men and women in New York, Paris, Baghdad, Moscow, Benghazi, Boston or Chicago have no problem supporting it is different to Islamic fundamental terrorism, no?

The difference between the IRA and Muslim terrorists has nothing to do with foreign support and everything to do with the scale of their attacks and the kinds of targets they chose. Brits have this inflated idea about how dangerous and indiscriminate the IRA was. During the Malayan Emergency alone, something like 7,000 civilians were killed during the first ten years of that conflict, more than during the IRA's entire 80+-year existence.

The IRA is about genteel British-style terrorism, where the terrorists go after military men, people in government and selected landmarks. Muslim terrorists don't bother with that - they're just out to kill as many civilians as possible. Like I said, the London subway bombers killed as many people in one sitting as the IRA did in an entire year, and the 9/11 bombers killed more people in one go than the IRA did in its entire history.

It needs to be understood that the Law Lords are banning evidence that may have been obtained by torture in other countries.On this basis it is virtually impossible to disprove that evidence passed to the British Security services was not obtained by torture.

This isn't about a jihadi being tied down and forced to listen to Ian Blairs speech it concerns the possibilty of allegations of torture anywhere.

The case in question concerns thirty suspect fighting deportation.

How was the ruling obtained? I presume there wasn't a case appealed to the Law Lords. Did the PM present a question to the Law Lords for a ruling? Can the Law Lords spontaneously promulgate rules of evidence for English and Welsh courts?

The article wasn't clear about the occasion for which the Law Lords could make such a ruling.

(btw, it is depressing indeed to have to argue that torture is wrong in the 21st century)

- Josh

So, no more spilling water on Korans then?

Hank Scorpio,

On the other hand, if you know that that person has some vital information, such as where weapons or a bomb are, who his confederates are, or who/what the target of an operation is, you can be relatively sure that you'll be able to get it out of them with the proper force applied.

Jacob,

Torture is used to extract information about other terrorist cells, about caches of explosives, about planned operations - with the aim of preventing further acts of terrorism.
The conviction of the terrorist is of secondary importance; indeed - torture would be unacceptable for this end.

And Zhang Fei, passim,

You are all making the same mistake. The assumption is the torturer can know the "information" obtained is of valid or valuable. They can't. If you "know" they have some information then actually you already have preconceptions about what there is to be found.

What then happens is that torturers confirm their preconceptions (otherwise, why ever stop), or get random confessions that are subject to confirmation bias when evaluated. (Name "your confederates": name anyone you can think of. When they are tortured in turn then we find out they are confederates. A name is similar to that on a suspect list, that's them! Name a target of an operation, the location of an arms cache: think of somewhere likely to make the pain relent a while. No luck? He didn't tell us this time, but he will...)

The confirmation bias is exaggerated by this: torture is repugnant (in a thrilling way) to many of those ordering it, so they have to believe it is justified. So the information obtained thereby is privileged: it will be more believed because it is hard to accept that torture is ordered uselessly and innocents are tortured.

(One sees the same phenomenon with more general intelligence data--critical faculties are frequently abandoned if the source is "intelligence", despite the fact covert intelligence is less reliable than openly checkable information. It is invested with the aura of power.)

And that--apart from the sadism so evident in Axel Kassel's and Zhang Fei's lipsmacking approach--is the key to the abandonment of rationality here. There's a perfect circle: It is alright to torture devils "unlawful combattants", "terrorists". How do we know they are "unlawful combattants"? Because we are willing to torture them, they must be. And if we only torture them enough they'll admit it, too.

.... what weasel said.

I would rather 'real' torture be banned than government officials decide when and how to implement it, as i am sure the inland revenue would soon be sending people appointments for their information retrieval suites.

Julian Taylor

The point is that this government has no problem with reversing the burden of proof and putting it onto the accused. The Terrorism Act 2000 achieves this for several offences. The Law Lords have now done the same thing to the government. Abdul Kaboom will now only have to squeal "torture" for any case to collapse unless the goverment can prove that torture wasn't used to obtain prosecution evidence somewhere.

Guy Herbert, thanks for the excellent response to the comments above. By a rough calculation, 80 pct of the comments on the thread endorse torture or say that it should not be ruled out. I am beginning to wonder whether my libertarian views are welcome at this blog any longer.

Johnathan ..

I never realised Libertarian was short for .. French

Don't go ..

Presumably, bombing a city like Falluja to a smithereen is not barbaric.

It may or maynot be 'barbaric' but it is war. If the islamists cared about Falluja, they would not have holed up there. To refuse to attack an identified enemy because he is hidden amongst civilians is not 'mercy', it is decadence and a sure road to defeat.

More on-topic however, whilst one must sometimes do regretable things in extremis, limits need to be set and I broadly agree with the Law Lord's ruling as well.

My what a depressing start to the day. Apparently it is OK to torture people, without restriction if:

1. You might save 'a lot' of lives by so doing. Apparently 3000 is a lot, but 5 or 6 isn't.

2. The people you are torturing aren't soldiers or criminals, but something new and worse called 'people I really hate'

Some points in particular:
" I don't quite follow the logic of those who think it's OK to kill terrorists but barbaric to torture them"

Oh really? You don't see how killing someone to prevent them performing an action is different from causing them extreme suffering to force them to perform an action? You must be a particularly dull kind of Utilitarian. Presumably you must believe all actions are justified if the end result is saving innocent lives? So it's OK to assassinate a US president, if their homeland security policy was inadequate? After all, ending one life to save thousands...

And why stop at 'terrorists' surely we should torture mafia members, for the information they hold? And we should certainly torture foreign spies, no? And since we know that the government of Iran and Syria support terrorism, we should certainly be able to torture any of their officials we capture, as they may well have life saving information to impart.

My, I can see your brutal, torturing police state progressing fast. Next up will be those goddam liberals who give to 'pro Palestinian' charities - I bet they've got a few contacts worth finding out about. And as for any imams... well...

Pete_london

Proof that someone was not tortured, at least in the UK, is very easy to prove. All interrogations carried out in secure facilities such as Paddington Green police station are done under the eye of surveillance cameras; the subject is also under surveillance while in his cell and while being transferred to the interrogation unit and the police can therefore easily disprove any claims against them - a copy of the tapes is normally set aside for the suspect's legal defence team. In addition there are set hours that the police may interrogate a suspect for, and he/she must be allowed regular meal and sanitation breaks and a decent period of rest.

Obviously I would hope that the police would not be silly enough to rely upon evidence obtained overseas under 'torture' but I think the above suffices to suggest that anyone making claims against the police in the UK is going to come up against pretty much irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

Julian Taylor

Read the first line of the bloody link and posts from GCooper and Peter. The Law Lords aren't particularly exercised over what goes on in Paddington Green. What they are trying to prevent is evidence being presented against someone in the UK which may have been gained via the torture of someone else in an Uzbek dungeon.

Fine, you may think. But the situation is this: Mr Jihad sings like a canary in that Uzbek dungeon and fingers Abdul Kaboom of North London. Abdul Kaboom's counsel alleges that Mr Jihad's statement was gained under torture. Whereas the natural order of things is "this is Mr Jihad's statement, you prove that it was gained under torture", the Law Lords have decreed "you have presented Mr Jihad's statement, now prove it wasn't gained under torture".

How the hell do you prove that?

Sorry if I appeared to be a wuss in my last comment. No I am not going off in a huff. But the comments here from some people worry me. As soon as we start looking around for "exceptional cases" to justify using torture - however defined - then it creeps into the system, and can get used for more and more cases. At that stage I fail to see how we are much different from the head-hackers.

Even in the "ticking bomb" case where a suspect might be able to tell us the whereabouts of a weapon, it is unlikely in practice that torture can yield decent information. I'd like to know if torture was ever effectively used by the Allies during WW2, for instance.

"The assumption is the torturer can know the "information" obtained is of valid or valuable. They can't."

2. The people you are torturing aren't soldiers or criminals, but something new and worse called 'people I really hate'

Let's use a case for a thought experiment:

A terrorist stabbed to death an Israeli yesterday, then surrendered and was captured.

Would it be ok to use ... hm... some harsh interrogation tactics in order to find out who the ring leader - or cell leader who organized the thing was, and by arresting him - or them - prevent further murders ?

Are the person of this terrorist and his rights so totally unviolable? Supposing the death penalty applies (it does not in this case) - is it ok to condemn him to death but not to extract life saving information from him ?

Pete London,
In fact now it pays to reveal information concerning all contacts,the more the merrier,then when the case is brought to court it only requires one link to claim torture for the whole case t collapse.
Since cliaming torture is part of the al Qaeda training handbook,their Lordships have just awarded the worlds number one terrorist organisations a get out of jail free card

I'd like to know if torture was ever effectively used by the Allies during WW2, for instance.

Don't be ridiculous.
Torture is like terrorism - it works.

Tons and tons of very useful information have been extracted in "tough" interrogations, by everyone, everywhere, always.

Johnathan

How about summary justice (execution). There was plenty of that in WWII, done by the men.

Is that worse than torture ?

Fine, you may think. But the situation is this: Mr Jihad sings like a canary in that Uzbek dungeon and fingers Abdul Kaboom of North London. Abdul Kaboom's counsel alleges that Mr Jihad's statement was gained under torture. Whereas the natural order of things is "this is Mr Jihad's statement, you prove that it was gained under torture", the Law Lords have decreed "you have presented Mr Jihad's statement, now prove it wasn't gained under torture".

How the hell do you prove that?

What a silly example.

If the only evidence against the suspect is the fact that someone else (perhaps as part of a plea bargain, at least as part of an attempt to escape [further] torture) has made an accusation against him, no judge or jury would give the case a moment's glance.

The security services, however, are entitled (indeed, obliged) to consider all intelligence, regardless of source. If they get a tip-off about a terrorist plot, they can investigate it and, should the tip-off prove to be correct then they can prosecute, using the evidence they gathered. The initial tip-off proves little or nothing.

There is a distinction to be made here between evidence for a court case, where that evidence forms a central plank of the case, and intelligence about ongoing or imminent operations, where the initial evidence will (if it is correct) be superseded by far more evidence acquired in the process of shutting down the planned terrorist operation.

"You don't see how killing someone to prevent them performing an action is different from causing them extreme suffering to force them to perform an action?"

No, actually you cause them extreme suffering to prevent others from preforming an action, like detonating a bomb or killing a hostage.

I think that torture should be legal, but inadmissible in court. This would ensure that torture is only used to obtain life-saving information, rather than a confession.

And, what Zhang Fei said.

rsole asks if summary execution was worse than torture. Summary execution is a crime, particularly if the person killed has surrendered.

Jacob writes: "Torture is like terrorism, it works". Are you in favour of it then? What sort of crude utilitarian calculus can one pray in aid of such a course? Please feel free to reply if you think I am being unfair.

In any event, I doubt torture is going to work on religious fanatics dreaming of self-destruction, such as the 9/11 hi-jackers.

Peter

Haven't they just. Rob Knight doesn't get it, but the Law Lords have perverted a legal principle which is simple but essential to good order: that the onus is on those who make an allegation - in this case that evidence was gained under torture - to prove that allegation for it to stand. Some would say this is more evidence of which way the Law Lords swing when the choice is civilisation vs barbarism. I'd say we already had enough evidence for a conviction already.

We no longer have the death penalty. A prime and perennial justification is that those wrongly convicted remain alive and injustices can be overturned. So, even if Abdul Kaboom is convicted of charges laid against him, Michael Mansfield can still don his kaffiyah before toodling off to gain evidence in support of his allegation that Mr Jihad's statement was forced out of him through torture. Abdul Kaboom is still around to bring and maybe win appeals. But no, the Law Lords instead decree that on the mere utterence of the word "torture" Abdul Kaboom must be out and about unless the prosecution can somehow prove that Mr Jihad's koran wasn't pissed on.

"I doubt torture is going to work on religious fanatics dreaming of self-destruction, such as the 9/11 hi-jackers."

I don't. Death by blowing one self up is obviously much less painful than tortue, if at all.

Jonathan, I think you do not have children (please correct me if I am wrong) Still, you can imagine a situation one of the commenters above has suggested. Or, it does not have to be your child, it can be the one person you love more than anyone else in the world. What would you do? And what about the "slippery slope" argument?

Torture is not like terrorism; torture is terrorism. And that is the only sense in which it can be said to "work".

I'll do a full post on this point this evening.

Did this judgement define "torture" or can we expect perky lawyers to try to define it for us. IE: its torture not allow a Muslim to pray 5 times a day even if he is a terrorist and knows something that might prevent the killing of thousands. Or is it torture to deny someone access to food and water for 9 hours straight?

I bet everyone here defies torture differently and you can bet the lawyers for terrorists are going to find lots of ways to define it in ways we could have never imagined. What do you think is torture?

Andrew, I bet that most commenters here have more or less the same things in mind when they think about torture. That question should rather be addressed to the lawmakers.

Alisa, with respect, that is an emotional argument. I have two lovely young nieces and a fiancee whom I adore; that hardly means I think that protecting them means I would be justified in say, wiring the private parts of a suspected terrorist to the National Grid to get a confession.

Another point that comes to me: many of the commenters here normally attack things like ID cards and the rest and yet seem tolerant towards use of torture, arguably one of the primary demonstrations of brute state power. I don't understand the logic of you guys. Again, I don't want to misrepresent folk but this seems weird.

Jonathan, since when the principle of protecting life (not to mention property) has become an emotional one for a rational person like you? Not that I mind, just surprised:-) Actually, after I posted that question, I came up with an answer that I expected you to give, and that is what would a person who thinks that theft of any kind should be illegal do when faced with a choice of stealing food or starving to death. That would make much more sense.

There are more red herrings here than in a Cuban fish market.

As far as UK law is concerned torture isn't an issue. It's illegal as (with due respect to those who think nothing is so bad that it may not be used to prevent terrorism) it should be.

But what Pete_London says is a plain statement of fact. As a consequence of this ruling by Lord Milquetoast and his pals, all a terrorist suspect has to do is say nothing at all when interrogated in the UK, claim that any evidence from anywhere else being used to convict him was produced under torture and he's off the hook - so to speak.

You can't prove a negative.

Wild predictions and surmise? Not at all. Just look at the Islamists who have, for years, used the torture card to avoid deportation.

Not for the first time in recent years, British law has been bent so far backwards that the innocent will suffer for the sake of the guilty.

Alisa, since you raised the issue of whether I have kids or not as somehow impacting on the issue, I felt that it was a sort of "let's do it for the kids" kind of position, ie, an emotional one. Come on, regardless of whether one has children or not, the use of torture should be judged on moral grounds or else we end up making all kinds of exceptions.

The only case I can think of to justify torture -- however defined -- is the ticking bomb scenario described memorably by Charles Krauthammer in a recent article, and even he realises that there needs to be incredibly tight controls on this. In practice, I wonder what will happen.

My having kids or not has nothing to do with it and actually I regard it as a form of moral abdication to use one's loved ones as an excuse for torture.

I notice no one has yet to answer my question. What do you define as torture? Remember that there are people claiming that merely being held in Gitmo is torture.

Is it ok to lose a few thousand people because a terrorist has been released because his confession is not admissable because he claims he was tortured abroad? Or is the principle more important that future deaths of citizens?

Jonathan: sure. These questions are, and should be, purely moral.

Actually, I thought that you oppose torture under any circumstances - I am glad you are not. I basically agree with you and Charles Krauthammer, although that position does rase the problem of not only defining torture (that would be the lesser of our problems), but also of defining a "ticking bomb". I think this question is also the one really arising from Anderw's last comment. (Again, more so than the definition of torture.)

I agree that torture of those who would gladly murder me, my wife and my children is wrong. Dont want to infringe their human rights.

Better to shoot the bastards on sight.

All this ultimately boils down to putting a price on human life, doesn't it?

Ted, your wife and kids are held hostage at an unknown location. If you shoot the bastards on sight, they will not be able to tell you where that location is. Sorry for getting all emotional - it's Ted's fault:-)

It's a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. If an evidence obtained by torture can save many lifes - why not?

I notice no one has yet to answer my question. What do you define as torture? Remember that there are people claiming that merely being held in Gitmo is torture.

Life is not simple, not everything can be defined satisfactorily.

The Israeli Supreme Court has tried and came up (a few years ago) with this ruling: tortue is illegal and unadmissible, but "mild physical pressure" might be justified in a "ticking bomb" case.

As Thomas Sowell would say: in real life there are trade-offs.

Torture is not like terrorism; torture is terrorism. And that is the only sense in which it can be said to "work".

Correct.

I wish we didn't have to face such catastrophic dilemas. But if it's your survuval against theirs, you do what it takes to survive.

Some of the comments in this discussion really worry me. It stikes me that for some being a liberterian has become synonomous with instrumentalism, right wing authoritarianism and contempt for the humanity.

Its precisely the hardest situations, where there is a ticking bomb and we think the man in custody knows something, that we stop ourselves, as individuals and as a society, from stepping into barabarity. We acknowledge that just because something is technically or physically possible, and in full knowledge of the implications, as self-respecting human beings we exercise our rational ability to restrain ourselves.

Thats the point of it being an abolsute principle, a line in the sand, even if it means 10,000 people may die.

Otherwise we might as well all just curl up and submit to the jackboot - in whatever form it takes, from America's gulag to every tinpot dictator and authoritarian theocrat.

Johnathan Pearce, Alisa

The Charles Krauthammer piece is very compelling. I do wonder if the absolutist, no-torture-ever camp can present as compelling an argument. That's not being derogatory, if someone can present the case I want to read it.

Alisa,

"Your husband and kids are held hostage in the next room. Look; there's a little window, here, so you can see and hear quite well."

"Now, you may claim to know nothing of what we are talking about, but we know different because your name is on our list. If you tell us what we want to know, then we will shoot them when you beg us to. But if you still say you can't, or give misleading answers, then everything that happens to them will be your fault."

"If you genuinely have nothing to tell us, of course we'll just have to take emotional comfort in how important what we are doing is. It's us humans or you animals, and we'll do whatever it takes to preserve our humanity, even if it means being worse than you."

Why do all you torture fans think it can only happen to someone else; that there is always a sufficient trade-off; that there always will be information that can be extracted? There's the "ticking bomb" fallacy: discussion focusses on the trade-off, but the founding premise of the thought-experiment is false.

"Better to shoot the bastards on sight," writes Ted.

How do you know that you have got the right "bastards", Ted? Telepathy?

There's much mention of humans in this correspondence but some of us are not. Some will do absolutely everything to destroy us. We will do everything to survive. Everything, however repugnant.

I think the best comment here so far was the one that said it ought to be illegal, but still sometimes used.

If we let them torture terrorists it's only a matter of time till they are torturing US.

That said, I would sincerely hope that in certain situations, men and women in power would put their own careers aside and do what needs to be done. It needs to be illegal, but if a terrorist group has a nuclear bomb in a city somewhere and we have captured one of them... Their is NOTHING that should be held back...

permanent expat...

What are they then, untermensch? All the rules are suspended just like in Eastern Eurpoe in the war? Oh but of course, all mistakes will be 'regrettable'.

They only genuine force that is able to destroy the West (as opposed to kill quite a lot of people - not the same thing) is ourselves

On second thoughts, you are right. I must be so unintelligent. Thanks for your enlightened advice on the subject of torture.

They should be tortured first, then shot if not of use.

Is it a that folk here are pro-torture just so long as it is against certain elements - Muslims, Chechnyans etc. - or would people feel comfortable in the knowledge that Timothy McVeigh types were carted off to Syria for the third degree?

I guess I'm just trying to ascertain whether this is more akin to anti-Islamofascist hysteria or something that people believe that our security agencies have some right to carry out.

The question needs to be raised,what will be sacrificed to maintain a principle..will those against torture spell out how many other people they will sacrifice for their principles?
Secondly would they consult those to be sacrificed?

This isn't an argument for torture,simply to point out that principles have a price,they are not just abstract concepts.

I would agree will Andrew,torture is not being defined,thus they will be defined for us.

Or Deborah Davis, say. Obviously something to hide.

Peter, a daft argument, if I may say so. To say that those who oppose torture should somehow explain to some unquanitifiable mass of people why they are not prepared to beat the shit out of suspects to glean some possible fact is nonsense. The presumption should be on the shoulders of the pro-torture folk to prove their case, not the other way around. Your argument is potentially open-ended and could use massive use of torture against thousands of people.

To repeat, the "ticking bomb" scenario is the only one I can think of to even begin to justify duress against a suspect, and even then there is no guarantee that the duress will work.

Jonathon,
No it is not,you need to explain your case,not just proclaim your moral superiority.That others might die for your principles.We have had enough of this from the liberals and the left.
Have the guts to say "I eschew torture no matter the consequences" We are not playing debating room games,this isn't a possible scenario,it is a probable scenario.
I cannot understand why you shy away from such a respectable position

I notice that you have downgraded the word torture to "Duress",what do you mean? Imprisonment is duress.

Jonathon,
In you eagerness to refute my argument you semed to have neglected to read this.

"This isn't an argument for torture,simply to point out that principles have a price,they are not just abstract concepts."

First I would like to say that I think torture can work - not that it ALWAYS DOES work (in a useful sense at least) and not that it NEVER works.
As much as I'd like to believe it doesn't work I can't. Anyone can be made to say anything (including correct, valuable and verifiable facts) given the right "leverage" which may or may not include torture.

I agree that torture can be the "moral choice" in certain hypothetical situations. However to those who say things like "Going squeamish over self-defense measures is a sign of ennervation and decadence" (presuming they're not just out to shock) I say this - have you really thought about what torture CAN mean? I mean really? To disregard people's qualms over its use in such a cavalier fashion you're either a sadist or ignorant.

"It's OK to kill terrorists but barbaric to torture them" - I think there are things worse than death.

Most of the arguments for torture on this discussion seem to take as a starting point - an evil maniacal guilty terrorist (note, not suspect); an agent designated by a morally superior state to perform the torture; and finally, life saving information gained from the process. How often is that going to happen? Unfortunately its also possible to instead end up with - a low level stooge who knows little, or even worse, an innocent man; an outsourced torture process performed by sadists under little or no control; useless and/or already known information, or even worse, none at all.

Due to the ever present possiblity of cock ups (yes people, it REALLY could happen to you! Not likely, but eminently possible) torture should be illegal everywhere. In the case of the ticking nuclear bomb destined to kill millions, well, there's always the option for the heroes to take action illegally. I mean - by the same neat arguments used elsewhere they would be morally OBLIGED to do so, despite knowing it was illegal.

We know from, from cases during Desert Storm, that yes indeed torture can get your suspect to do whatever it is you want. As an example, poor Flight Lieutenant John Peters was tortured over a matter of days, to the point that he believed he was going to die and resulting in his telling his Iraqi torturers anything and everything they wanted to know - regardless of whether it was true or not - apparently including stories about how RAF pilots were forced to fly against Iraq while their wives and children were held hostage.

Can you guarantee that the information extracted under extreme duress, presumably sacrifcing legality for speed, will be of any more value than information gleaned through painstakingly precise interrogation and corroboration of facts? If you can't then is it worth torturing someone unless, as commented by some seemingly very sadistic individual above, you actually enjoy the act?

There seem to be some here who think that if one thinks there might be problems with the results of this ruling you are therefore in favour of torture. It is possible to have doubts about the affects of the ruling and to think torture is wrong. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

Torture doesn't work? Since when?

Torture is a terrible thing but it is highly effective. It has been used for thousands of years and is a useful method of eliciting information from the enemy. If we are going to say that information obtained from torture is inadmissible in the trials of terrorists, we give them an advantage and weaken our own ability to fight the war against islamic fundamentalism. That's the hard fact nobody seems to want to admit.

It's amazing isn't it ? - that so many commenters on a libertarian site automatically look to the 'state' or 'judges' for a definition of torture, and who can do it ..

I reckon torture should be defined by the commonly accepted, traditional notions - eg. pulling teeth, fingernails etc in the mild case - up to the old fashioned treatments at the other end of the scale involving machinery, gravity, mangled ligaments, whatever. That's torture. Anything else isn't torture in my book.

What would YOU do if you had your hands on a pervert that had your child locked up somewhere ? I'd get immediately to work with whatever is necessary. May I be damned if I failed to have the backbone or stomach to do what is necessary.

And if I'm willing to do it for the sake of my child, I ought to be willing to do it for yours. That would be true charity .

If we're kind to the wicked, that means we're being wicked to the kind. (as some clever person once said).

All this talk probably means we haven't got a chance against the totalitarians that face us. Our grandparents, who had to deal with this type of menace PERSONALLY, would laugh to scorn our pathetic talk.

The "ticking nuclear bomb" scenario is indeed far fetched, you don't build an analysis on extreme examples.

But some other scenarios are commonplace. You catch a terrorist in the act, or after the act, or in a raid based on some intelligence, in possesion of bombs. No doubt as to their being terrorists. You want to know who the ring leader is, who the other memebrs of the ring, where the bombs are made. This knowledge will prevent future attacks - that is certain, (though not as dramatic attacks as the ticking nuclear bomb).

Do you (the police) use "tough" or "intense" interrogation tactics or don't you ?

That is a practical question, based on actual cases that happen every day. If terrorism is a prevalent, frequent occurence - you need to do what it takes to stop it. It's an ugly situation - but sticking the head in the sand and pretending it does not exist - won't do.

Jacob
That's exactly what I wrote some erudite comments back.
Torture is repungnant except......................
Abortion, ditto.

Someone also remarked that the only people who can destroy us are ourselves...............
..........and I reckon that, to date, we're doing a pretty good job.

Announcing that we won't use information based on torture employed outside Britain is insane. I don't care where the information was obtained - or how - if we can use it to save our civilisation. Actions that are, in S Weasel's wonderful phrase, "egregiously ouchy" produce results that may save Western lives and, ultimately, civilisation.

We should remember that the amount of torture applied is completely up to the torturee. He can sing like a canary at the first sight of a pair of pliers, in which case, he will not be tortured. Someone who refuses to cooperate invites torture by his decision. We should bear in mind that the decision is his.

And as Zhang-Fei rightly noted, the torturee will get over it, eventually. The terrorist we kill has a permanent death.

The Lords is stuffed with Emily's leftist cronies, who outnumber normal people. If Cameron gets in, he needs to finish the job and make the second chamber a completely elected chamber, so they reflect the will of the voter, not the will of a megalomaniac, tranzi authoritarian. Also no more of these ridiculous "life peers".

Conan said,

What would YOU do if you had your hands on a pervert that had your child locked up somewhere ? I'd get immediately to work with whatever is necessary. May I be damned if I failed to have the backbone or stomach to do what is necessary.

And if I'm willing to do it for the sake of my child, I ought to be willing to do it for yours. That would be true charity.

I agree with this entirely as long as I really do know I have someone who really does have the information. And I am a libertarian and see no conflict.

This would come under the heading of self defense or assisting the defense of others and I have no problem with that.

JP dismissed without really commenting on this kind of argument as he only saw it as a "its for the children" type bullshit. It is not that way at all. The "for the children" argument is not an argument but an emotional apeal to get someone to not inspect a proposed solution too closely. eg "We should ban smoking in ..... for the children" Well as I'd do pretty much anything for my children I'd better go along with this. It is usually the case that when a "for the children" case is being put by some statist that it is a lie. In the scene described above it is not.

Another point about being a libertarian is that I apply the non agression principle to law making and not necessarily to any other aspect of life. It means I am against any organisation running a campaign against fatty foods using taxes for funding. It does not mean I am against a genuine non state funded charity running a similar campaign. I might be all in favour of it and their would be no conflict.

I agree that it is pretty pointless putting arguments forth about torture when we may well be thinking from different definitions of what that would be. Someone above said it is pulling teeth or connecting someone's testicles to the national grid. Those actions are very violent but not necessarily torture. For me it would need to have an additional element in it's context.

If I had a pervert who has my daughter locked up somewhere I wouldn't hesitate to use any kind of force to get the information I needed to help her. But I wouldn't regard it as torture.

For me torture would be physical abuse of a strong nature designed to garner vital information from someone we suspect may have some. The key word there is "suspect" and it is that which makes the use of torture wrong.

Concur with the commenter above who requested a definition of 'torture'.

As far as 'degrading treatment' is concerned, I don't much give a damn if someone who is suspected of being a member of al qaeda is mocked, insulted, deprived of sleep, wrapped in Israeli flags, given pork to eat, or only provided with pages torn from the koran to wipe their arse with. Let's not equate the two, because they are not at all the same thing.

rosignol - they don't wipe their arse with paper. They do it with their fingers.

I wonder if "Sir" Iqbal Sacranie has graduated to loo paper yet. If not, stay upwind when he walks into a party. Tony may have to get his rolling couch for his rolling meetings sent to the tip.

Wrapping them in an Israeli flag? That's a new one for me, and so deliciously cruel, too!

Guy, "my kids are in the next room", etc. I tell them anything to save my kids, truth, lies, whatever works, what's your point? We go to war and kill people. Are you saying that it is immoral for us to do so because it is not something we would like to be done to us?

I certainly agree with whoever said that some things are worse than death, and torture can certainly be one of them. But keep in mind that death can be pretty nasty as well. Speaking of which, how many of you libertarian gun-ownership supporters have shot a human being in reality? How many of you are really prepared to do this if necessary? Can you imagine what it really feels like to kill a real human being? I am trying to imagine, and it feels, well, awful does not begin to describe it. But I certainly hope I can do it if I have to. The same with torture. Like I said before, all this boils down to putting a price on human life, and, as prices are, there is a scale.

I think this entire issue has to be put on the table (not just PC/PR politically convenient bits of it, as has been done in a decision described in the link). It needs to be clear what, when and where can and cannot be done. "It has to be illegal, but has to be done sometimes"? What kind of an argument is that?

Peter, no, the burden of proof of the admissabilty and the effectiveness of torture is on the shoulders of you, and others who think it is potentially usable by the security services. As I said, once we start to embrace torture as a legit way of proceeding then I simply don't see how one can stop it becoming more and more widely used. That is hardly a position consistent with a respect for individual liberty, which hardly needs to be pointed out on a blog like this.

I find it remarkable that when commenters so regularly get irate about stuff like ID cards and so forth, suddenly the healthy suspicion of state power disintigrates over the issue of torture. Or maybe as Julian Taylor has remarked, dislike of state power stops when it comes to dealing with brown people with funny surnames.

Andrew, definitions: I would say that torture involves any sustained physical violence against a person, such as through extreme heat and cold, electrocution, cutting of the skin, denial for long periods of time of sleep, food and drink.

I certainly don't think that wrapping a suspect up in a flag is torture. That is silly. Examples like that is one reason why I think Andrew Sullivan has lost the plot a bit.

Verity states that the amount of torture "necessary" is up too the person being tortured. Huh? What happens if the person being tortured doesn't have the information? Your argument seems to assume that the person being tortured is guilty by definition. And that is why liberal states have banned its use.

Jonathan: "Examples like that is one reason why I think Andrew Sullivan has lost the plot a bit." Huh? Can you tell me more - I seem to have missed that one.

To more serious stuff, let me understand: are you opposed to torture in general, or just when it is done by the state? If individual citizens should be able to carry guns to protect themselves, should they be able to torture for the same purpose?

Jonathan:

I really don't think the British, American, French or any other security services in the civilised world go plucking people off the streets at random on the offchance they know something of interest to the state.

They know who knows something.

I think torture should be illegal, to demonstrate society's disapproval. I also think it should be practised anyway, when innocent citizens of our countries are under threat. I think sacrificing innocent citizens of civilised countries to dainty reservations about torturing vital information out of people who mean us great harm is outrageous.

I really cannot grasp the concept of simultaniously advocating a practice and making it illegal.

Alisa - I think we have to signal our disapproval by making laws against it.

On the other hand, needs must when the devil drives.

Jonathon,
Now you are simply making shit up,