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 undermined by the images from Abu Ghraib, by CIA 'renditions' and the deaths of 'unlawful enemy combatants' under interrogation.
The 'ticking bomb scenario' tends to assume, as medieval inquisitors once did, that torture is the 'queen of proofs'. But history is full of torture victims who told their interrogators what they wanted to hear. In the post 9/11 era, torture has fed the flow of terrorist conspiracies - from the 2002 'ricin plot' to last summer's airline bomb plot.
In cases like these, allegations of torture have undermined the credibility of key witnesses, raising the possibility that these conspiracies were produced - rather than prevented - in the interrogation chamber.
At other times, torture has impeded the normal process of justice. In the United States, the alleged 'dirty bomber' Jose Padilla was held in isolation for three-and-a-half years, reducing him to near-vegetable status. He is clearly unfit for trial.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, (pictured on previous page) one of the alleged ringleaders of the 9/11 attacks, is believed to have |
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| Decisions about whether or not to torture are decisions about who we are and what we represent |
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confessed under torture, which may explain why he has never been brought to trial. No one can stop television audiences enjoying the visceral satisfaction of watching Keifer Sutherland break the fingers of another crazed terrorist wacko in 24. But such fantasies should not dictate policy.
On the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the detention centres at Guantanamo Bay (left), arguments about torture should not be restricted to whether 'we' have the right to torture 'them'. The decision of whether or not to torture is a decision about who we are and what we represent.
The US military recognised this in WWII when they rejected the use of torture against the Nazis. Now, in the new era of permanent war, societies that claim to be civilised and democratic should not be seduced by the hypothetical urgency of the 'ticking bomb' into enshrining torture as a permanent principle.
If they do, they merely give succour to their enemies and contribute further to the barbaric politics of the new century. 
24, Sky One, Sundays at 9pm. View trailer
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 22, 2007
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