Red Cross Torture Report

[Furunculus]

I am happy that society does not tolerate torture.

At the same time i am glad that governments secretly engage in acts of torture when they feel the public good is worth the risk of the public finding out.

Pulling peoples finger nails out is a bad way of extracting accurate information, so the received wisdom goes.

At the same time western intelligence services made an art form of breaking spies via methods that would probably be considered torture if only psychologically so.

So when I say I support the British governments involvement in torture I am pretty sure it doesn't include smashing peoples genitals into a pulp, because received wisdom says that kind of thing is counter-productive.

At the same time, were i an investigator witnessing the aftermath of something like 911, with a suspect in front of me who won't talk and no sophisticated interrogation training to fall back on, I am pretty sure i'd take a pair of pliers to every single one of his fingers in the hope of extracting something that might prevent another such attack.

I don't pretend to view the world in black and white, but i'm glad the vast majority of of the UK does.