To restore confidence, there must be an inquiry into alleged British involvement in torture. 

Dennis Sewell

No, David.
To announce any such enquiry now would be tantamount to declaring that it is an open question whether the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Chief of MI6 are blatant liars. All three have been clear and unambiguous in their denials of any official British complicity in torture. We should either believe them or remove them. Nothing would more undermine public trust in government than to leave them occupying their jobs while at the same time signalling that we are unsure whether they have any credibility or not. My instinct is to believe them. If, subsequently it is found that they were lying - then I'd be all in favour of pouring bucket loads of ordure upon their heads, stripping them of their honours, gold-plated pensions and so forth. For any sophisticated democratic society to function, it is necessary for voters to believe a set of seemingly mutually exclusive propositions at the same time. For example: that all members of parliament are 'honourable', yet given to cheating on their expenses; that ministers are fundamentally dishonest, but eschew the 'lie direct'.. etc...etc.. Such polite fictions are the cement of society. Without them there is nothing but cynicism and chaos.

Michael Booth

And how do you go about restoring confidence in our system of inquiries? We all know what the outcome will be so, in these straightened times, why not save the money?

Steve.W

John Scarlett said - “We're an independent service working to our own laws - nobody else's - and to our own values."

So the badly asymmetric extradition laws with the US that are at the root of the Gary McKinnon case don't count here and are not typical of the UK US relationship?

Your own values perhaps Mr Scarlett but not mine. In the UK US relationship there is flexible geometry, you might not see this but your old boss Tony Blair did, ask him about it when you get time. You make me laugh.

Ruairidh

The problem here is not the Americans but the Muslim nations. Practices that we would regard as torture are commonplace across the Muslim world. We cannot stop these from happening because we have no authority over the people doing it. Furthermore their moral code and that of their political masters doesn’t see the problem so political pressure is laughed off as naïve.

We absolutely need to make sure we are not complicit and do not condone however we also have a duty to keep working with these foreign agencies. Some of the torture absolutists though go too far and want to stop the appearance of collusion. In practice this means stopping intelligence cooperation and that would be a disaster.

An example from David Davis was his complaint that we informed Pakistan that there was a terrorist in their country and then, after the ISI arrested him, feed in questions. What would the idealists like to see MI6 do in scenarios like this? The only line of action that guarantees the suspect is not tortured is to do nothing at all and allow the terrorist to operate freely. In a case like this it is the ISI that have all the responsibility for how they handle themselves. We cannot be held accountable for what they freely choose to do.

I’d be very confident that an enquiry could be held that would absolve the intelligence agencies of collusion but not the ‘appearance of collusion’. The sort of cooperation that Davis makes hay from would still be there and allow opponents to make insinuations. So I’m not sure an enquiry would help. An enquiry result that absolves the UK of guilt that also appeases the torture idealists may not exist this is because international cooperation in terrorism means dealing with torturers.

R

I agree with Dennis - if people are sufficiently cynical as to believe that the Foreign Secretary et cetera are all lying about this, then there is no reason why they should believe the results of a public inquiry either.

Furthermore, there have in general been far too many such inquiries in recent years, wasting large amounts of time and money and distracting from the business of government. All too often these are just a wimpy way for a politician to kick an issue into touch for a while, or a sop to noisy activists.

In any case, it's a major exaggeration to say that there is a problem of 'public confidence' around this issue. I would be fairly confident that the vast majority of people don't care, and that such public opinion as there is on this matter would probably be in favour of harsher measures than are in fact employed.

Having stated its policy in this matter, the government and officials should move on, and ignore the commentariat. Quite apart from all this, why does 'public confidence' in the SIS matter anyway, and why should Scarlett talk to the press at all, and why do I even know his name?

John W

As a member of the "public" I can't say I am too bothered how this information is gathered.

Colin

Don't talk rubbish.

The reason we're in this mess is because incompetent, craven, useful idiots in the labour regime, allowed useful idiots in the human rights industry to get far too close to the workings of state security.

Why couldn't ministers just have said that they do not discuss issues of state security - full stop? Just like they used to. We were much safer then...

The answer to that question is that for the past twelve years they've set about corrupting and politicising every component of the state, for narrow party purposes.

Frank P

There must be nothing of the sort; it would only serve the ends of our divers enemies, including (and perhaps most significantly)the enemy within. Stop this nonsense! Our squaddies and those of our allies are in harms way. The Secret Services are pointless if they are not what it says on the tin. The big problem with their function at the moment is that many of their files necessarily contain unpleasant details of those holding power in the current administration (or should do, supposing they haven't already been 'weeded').
National security has always been a murky business; it can never be otherwise. Moralising and pontification about human rights will not protect our nation from the evil intentions of its enemies. Despite the deterioration and undermining of our nation state by traitors and idealistic wankers who live in a utopian dream world, what remains is probably still worth protecting, so unhook yourself from the conspiracy to undermine those who are dedicated to doing it, David and pray that they haven't already been too deeply infiltrated by our enemies or weakened by incompetence and lack of support.

H&Fer

I don't see why anyone should believe John Scarlett. He was the one who stood behind the dodgy dossier in the first place. He is a Labour stooge who has consistently lied to help government policy. Not to be trusted.

adrian drummond

"...our own laws and values". I didn't know we had our own any more. Aren't our laws and values set in Brussels?

Simon Stephenson

"Confidence in British Intelligence’s integrity is uneasy and a tendency to judge them as guilty before proving it innocent is emerging in consequence."

The tendency to disbelieve the refutations arises not just from a questioning of the integrity of British Intelligence, but from a general scepticism about the basic honesty of the entire British establishment.

Spinning everything to construct the desired mass opinions may be an effective way of controlling those who answer to authority more than truth, but it also has the consequence of hardening the cynicism of those who don't.

"Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, Andrew Tyrie’s assessment that an inquiry "is the only way to give the public confidence that we have got to the bottom of all of this, to draw a line under it and to move on" is correct and the government should call one."

Why bother? Those who are going to be persuaded by the results of an "independent" inquiry can equally easily be persuaded by propaganda, while those who believe that any establishment-appointed inquiry will whitewash all actual wrongdoing will never be persuaded otherwise.

Malcolm

Ah yes, Mr Scarlett, he of dodgy dossier fame.

Even our intelligence services have been politicised, like everything else NuLiebour touches - or was he rather too willing??

He should have resigned the moment it was realised that he had danced to the tune of Campbell the spin-doctor.

Another reward for failure?

Andre

Even if we had an inquiry would those questioned tell the truth? Perhaps we should authorize temporary water boarding just to make them 'fess up

Hugh Janus

The torrent of denials indicates that there is clearly something to hide here - so there won't be an enquiry.

Simon Stephenson

Dennis Sewell 9.42am

"For any sophisticated democratic society to function, it is necessary for voters to believe a set of seemingly mutually exclusive propositions at the same time. For example: that all members of parliament are 'honourable', yet given to cheating on their expenses; that ministers are fundamentally dishonest, but eschew the 'lie direct'.. etc...etc.. Such polite fictions are the cement of society. Without them there is nothing but cynicism and chaos."

Up to a point, Mr Sewell. There will obviously be occasions when it is correct to disguise the truth, sometimes even to tell an untruth. But this is a very different state of affairs from one in which everything is presented for maximum effect, irrespective of what the truth, balance and actuality may be.

The cynicism and chaos result from an authority that has lost sight of the distinction between distortion that is necessary and that which is merely opportunistic.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Dennis Sewell

Just how are we to 'remove them'? And please clarify how these people, if found wanting, are to be stripped of their honours etc. By Court of Law?

This is not about 'confidence' it is about basic trust.

Frankly most people are no longer prepared to trust MPs, Ministers, or senior civil servants. Labour has totally destroyed the basis for any trust. It will not be rebuilt for decades.

Malcolm

Life others I am not too bothered how British intelligence gets information.
I am extremely bothered that it's effective. If an enqury hinders that then no enquiry.
Equally the only people that need 'confidence' in the skill and determination of our security services are terorists opposed to Britain.

Dennis Sewell

@Simon Stephenson & Chuck Unsworth

everything is presented for maximum effect, irrespective of what the truth

There is a world of difference between common or garden ministerial shiftiness and dishonesty - as exemplified by 'Brownies' or Harriet Harman failing to note that her figures on the gender pay gap included part-time workers - and telling downright lies in response to a straightforward yes/no question on a matter of fact. We have come to accept the former as routine and thankfully have Fraser Nelson on hand to set things straight with his invaluable graphs. The problem has persisted for a long time. It must be at least a decade since Matthew Parris noted that New Labour had passed into its 'post-ironic phase', after a No.10 press officer had handed him one Friday evening a list of "off the cuff remarks the Prime Minister {Tony Blair} would be making over the weekend." We should, however, retain our capacity to be shocked and surprised by the telling of barefaced lies by senior cabinet ministers and public servants. If we seriously believe that the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary etc may be lying on a plain question of fact, then we should be agitating for their removal rather than agitating for an independent inquiry. Personally, I find it very hard to believe that senior figures in Whitehall or Westminster were aware that the Security Service's questions would be put to Binyam Mohammed while his penis was being slashed by a Moroccan goon.

AJC

After his involvement in the affair of the dodgy dossier John Scarlett should have resigned or been sacked.

Neither happend and he was in fact promoted by the government.

Can be trusted to tell the truth: I think not.

David Blackburn

Dennis Sewell: “To announce any such enquiry now would be tantamount to declaring that it is an open question whether the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Chief of MI6 are blatant liars.”

I don’t think those men’s veracity or the guiding principles of the secret services are the issue. The issue is identifying which principles were sacrificed in the early stages of the war, and to a lesser extent are still being sacrificed, and whether those sacrifices are damaging our efforts and loosing hearts and minds, both domestically and abroad. This is an ideological struggle; it is crucial that the free, liberal West is not reduced to the barbarity of its enemies, particularly if some of those who are interrogated using torture turn out to be innocent.

logdon

It's a funny old world when a two bit criminal false passport bearing jihad supporting, Binyan Mohammed is believed rather than our own security services, but that's the trench Labour has dug itself. And us.

Their never ending superfluity of lies and deception has resulted in the grand finale of us, to quote Brown himself, never believing another word they say again. He of course was talking of his partner in Granita grime, the arch dissembler Blair. We, of course are talking of the whole bloody lot of them.

Complicity in torture? How far can one take it?

If I read of a tale of a Polish Jew in 1943 Riga, tortured to death by an einsatzgruppenfuhrer SS corporal and do not visibly wince, am I implicated?

That's the general direction this nonsense is headed in and when compared to the reality which is going on all around us is so perverse it stinks. It’s akin to creating a favoured class structure of the oppressed whereby he who shouts the loudest gets the amnesty treatment, whilst the real victims are still, real victims.

Could this be that any form of torture, whatever the definition of torture is these days, when performed by our allies with our wink and a nod is worse than if we didn’t know the detail yet still accepted the outcome?

Or could it be that our only recognition of torture is when we are implicated, no matter how vaguely?

This is a road littered with so many non-sequitures, red herrings, straw men and all the rest of the arsenal of paraphernalia utilised by the human rights business in getting to their desired outcome. It is, if truth be known a piddling and tiny distraction in the grand scheme of the rights and the wrongs being enacted globally , even as I type.

A torture lottery whereby if you are an Algerian dissident locked in some stygian black hole for twenty years, you will certainly not win the bonus number, whereas if you are a Guantanamo inmate and manage to convince some Stafford Smith-alike, that a guard has deigned to touch your Koran with his filthy infidel, kuffur hands, you are in for the roll over of a lifetime.

That’s cultural relativity for you folks. A brouhaha in a teacup, created by and for the corrupted human rights/legal industry who are ultimately the only winners in this game of hypocrisy and cant.

As a slight, yet significant aside here’s another one. We wring our hands about the horrors of slave trade as if we Europeans were the instigators, perpetrators and only ones involved in the sordid business.

Here’s one for the ‘uman rights brigade. But as with torture, if it ain’t us with the shackles, racks, iron maidens, thumbscrews and hot pokers, it never happened?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ed-husain-where-is-the-muslim-anger-over-darfur-1769962.html

“The Canadian academic Salim Mansur claims: "Blacks are viewed by Arabs as racially inferior, and Arab violence against blacks has a long, turbulent record."

For the Nobel Prize winning novelist Wole Soyinka, the unwillingness to confront Arab racism is rooted in the role of Arabs in the slave trade. "Arabs and Islam are guilty of the cultural and spiritual savaging of the Continent," he writes.

The Ethiopian academic Mekuria Bulcha estimates that Arab traders sold 17 million Africans to the Middle East and Asia between the sixth and twentieth centuries. Yet, there is an almost total reluctance on the part of Arab intellectuals to examine their central role in slavery, past or present. Any attempt to confront persistent Arab racism is shouted down by appeals to Arab/African solidarity against the neo-colonialist West, a sentiment that seldom moves beyond slogans.

Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the senior council of Wahhabi clerics responsible for writing Saudi school text books, states: "Slavery is part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam. It has not been abolished.”

Chuck Unsworth

@ Dennis Sewell.

You see, I don't have your sensibilities. To me, all lying bastards are lying bastards. You clearly have some sort of ranking system whereby some lies issued by, say, junior civil servants, are perhaps less important than those day to day lies which we have all come to expect from Ministers. Or possibly you feel that dissimulation or deceit is a lesser form of lying. I fail to see much difference. They all amount to the same thing - dishonesty.

And you find it hard to believe that senior figures 'were aware'? What does that say of the quality of leadership, knowledge and control which these highly paid public servants have of their departments?

No, there has been far too much in the way of Nelsonian myopia amongst these unprincipled scum. Why have these people not made it their business to find out exactly what has been going on in our name? Or maybe they already have....

As to 'agitating for their removal' - by what means? A General Election perhaps? I don't think Scarlett and his colleagues have been elected. I may be wrong, of course.

David Blackburn

And as PS Dennis Sewell,

An inquiry is necessary to stop the practice, prevalent among some, of branding the security services guilty before being proved innocent. Allegations of our involvement in torture are now so widespread, they need to be addressed.

Verity

I agree with those who say they are fairly indifferent to how information regarding the proposed destruction of Britain and the advanced West is obtained.

I also agree with those above who write, in effect, "if you don't trust these people to have told the truth in their dossiers, why do you think they would tell the truth when questioned in an enquiry?"

Third, as in the Crusades, this is an all-out fight for the civilised values of the advanced West against hordes of ignorant, fanatical, hysterical, aggressive men. It's within our power to wipe them out, and we should do so.

Finally, no one else has commented on this statement in David's piece (not made by David himself)" "Asked if Britain was ever compromised by its allies’, and particularly the Americans’, “different moral standards”" ... I am genuinely at a loss for words. Was it ignorance on the questioner's part, or the sheer, toxic malice of the BBC destructive, vicious left? My guess is the latter, but someone should call them on it. For "different moral standards", one only has to look at the BBC.

Cogito Ergosum

Well said, logdon 1.26pm, about the man at the source of these complaints.

Simon Peters

Everyone now acknowledges that answers given under torture are unreliable. If the answers are worthless, what is the point of asking the questions? Surely the only correct moral stance is to say that we do not value information extracted under torture as it is valueless. It would also mean that there is no point in supplying questions to be asked of someone being tortured. The question then of collusion or complicity no longer needs to be asked. We are not at arms length from torture, we are totally uninvolved. Our Government expends vast amounts of effort in persuading the people to be afraid, in order that we do not protest when they let us down. To read some of the comments posted above is to realise how well they succeed with some of the more sheep-like members of our society. Barbaric torture practised elsewhere offers no protection at all against terrorists - it merely lets them know that we are no better than they are when it comes to taking the moral low ground.

Verity

Logdon - I enjoyed reading your post, as I always do, but Britain was never even tangentially involved in the slave trade. I am not even sure than any European countries were involved in it, either. For sure, it was the Royal Navy who put a stop to it.

Slavers were Africans who captured their own people; they had the skills, language and local knowledge to do so. It was Arabs who bought the captives from their own people, and transported them to wherever, including the US. It took it a while, but to its honour, the US eventually accepted culpability and did its best to make whatever amends are possible in cases like this, where most of the sufferers are deceased.

A point of minor interest, although not to those involved ... in Louisiana, you will find swathes of very rich, very well educated (Sorbonne, mainly) black people. They stick mainly to themselves, but they're very rich and posh.

Apparently, unlike the English, French plantation owners acknowledged children they had by slaves and included them in their wills. That might be part of the Code Napoléon, by which Louisiana is governed. I don't know. But it's an interesting little fact.

David Blackburn

Dennis Sewell,

Thanks for your response, I do not doubt the veracity of any of those men’s statements; the issue is that all three admit that our security service’s integrity is subject to a caveat: ‘the context of terrorism’. Allegations of our involvement in torture are now so widespread, they need to be addressed; these figures’ announcements reinforce this sense. An inquiry should stop the practice, prevalent among some, of branding the security services guilty before being proved innocent.

Dennis Sewell

@David Blackburn's PS

An inquiry is necessary to stop the practice, prevalent among some, of branding the security services guilty before being proved innocent.

But surely the effect of holding an inquiry would be precisely to brand the security services guilty - or at the very least, highly suspect - before proving them innocent?

Moreover, any inquiry that totally absolved them of complicity would be ridiculed as a whitewash. Anticipating this, the inquiry board would be sure to come up with some pernickity shortcomings: "...although not actually complicit in torture, the services' management failed to put in place adequate safeguards against the perception of complictiy... blah...blah..."

Not morally deficient, but bureaucratically deficient. Media reporting would focus on a 'raft of recommendations' to be 'put in place' . alongside a code of practice.

By the time the report came out, Scarlett would have gone and the rascally ministers ejected from government.

Definitely not worth the detour.

Verity

Last time they were only stopped at the Gates of Vienna. They're already way past that point now. When are we going to find the will to stop them and turn them back? Especially with the British "government", if that is not too strong a term, colluding by handing out British passports like sweeties.

Mass repatriation is the only way to salvation from the disgraceful dismantling of our civilisation in order to accommodate aliens from vastly more primitive societies.

Of course, the answer is that the socialists (except those who work at the BBC) don't like the immigrants, and don't mix around with them, any more than the rest of us do. The immigrants are, pure and simply, a weapon against our own people.

(When say "immigrants", I am not referring to people from Europe, or Jews, Hindus or Sikhs. Just to be clear.)

Ruairidh

Simon Peters: Sadly everyone acknowledges no such thing. Almost everyone in the western media more or less has but almost everyone in the business of upholding the law and suppressing democracy outside the west has not. Also sadly the western media are wrong. Torture used sensibly (if that isn’t an oxymoron) can get you reliable information. It can also get confessions to any old rubbish. You’re confusing the limited motives of the interrogator (show trials in Stalinist USSR for example) with the limits of the technique.

Your solution would indeed mean no involvement in torture but it would also mean no counter terrorist intelligence cooperation with any Muslim country (and a few others) in the world. No cooperation with the Afghans, nor the Saudis or Pakistanis. What about the CIA? How difficult do you think it will be to investigate pan-global AQ plots without international help? If the Saudis offered you intelligence (you assess will have been obtained by torture) on an extant plot in the UK would you simply ignore it? If you act on it and discover it to be true but lacking would you go back with follow up questions? Of course you would. It would be your duty to protect the UK.

Your suggestion is theoretically principled and worthy but in practice would be a serious dereliction of duty.

Dennis: I agree with your post of 3:47. We could write the conclusion now and it will be along those lines. Just enough hint of a pastel shade to avoid a whitewash. This would be an enquiry as propaganda. Those in the know know there is no need for this.

logdon

"Verity
August 10th, 2009 3:24pm

Logdon - I enjoyed reading your post, as I always do, but Britain was never even tangentially involved in the slave trade. I am not even sure than any European countries were involved in it, either. For sure, it was the Royal Navy who put a stop to it."

Likewise, Verity. Your perspicacity of, 'the whiff of freshly half baked trolls' still makes me smile.

As for slavery, British traders were involved. I lived in Clifton in Bristol for quite a while, some time back and learned a bit of the local history.

The ships owned by the Society of Merchant Venturers departed the harbour to the Barbary coast of North West Africa where a consignment of slaves, (traditionally and historically rounded up by Arabs and local tribesmen, note), were held to be transported to the West Indies.

The return journey manifest consisted mainly of tobacco, hence Wills' dominance in the City. And the glorious Neo Gothic tower at the top of Park Street.

In those days it was 'business as usual', nothing here to look at, as it were.

Attitudes changed and, as you say, William Wilberforce enacted law banning the practice. Enforcement was carried out by the Royal Navy.

Britain did not start this trade, nor take part in the capture, we merely joined in the, as they would now put it, logistics.

Wrong by today's standards and eventually wrong by the standards of the day, we at least got off our arses and did something about it.

More than can be said of others who now brazenly point wagging fingers.

Verity

The slave trade was organised by the followers of Mohammad.

So why are the Americans getting the blame? Had there been no Muslims paying a sum for every African captured on his/her native soil, so they could be sold on, there would never have been a slave trade.

Let us not forget this point.

No Westerner went into jungles and savannahs and somehow magically knew where there were people living and learned how to track them unobserved, and how to capture them without anyone noticing ... ahem.

The slave trade would never have been invented had it not been for the complicity of the Africans and the Arabs.

Simon Stephenson

Verity : 11.8.09 - 3.25am

"The slave trade was organised by the followers of Mohammad.

So why are the Americans getting the blame? Had there been no Muslims paying a sum for every African captured on his/her native soil, so they could be sold on, there would never have been a slave trade.

Let us not forget this point."

Didn't the "trade" also involve the slaves being purchased at the end of their journey across the Atlantic, and then treated by their new "owners" as productive commodities which were only of value for the labour to be got out of them?

Are you suggesting that this part of the "trade" was purely opportunistic, as presumably were the vast fortunes made by the non-Muslim slave transporters from Bristol and elsewhere, and that the only part of the process in any way reprehensible was the capture of the unfortunates in the first place?

I've heard some special pleading in my time, but none quite as vivid as this since I heard a Stalinist sympathiser suggesting that the kulaks were entirely responsible for their own liquidation.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Simon Stephenson

Organisation is one thing but, as you rightly point out, the purchasers are/were entirely complicit.

logdon

Simon Stephenson
August 11th, 2009 9:17am

You miss Verity's point. The market for slaves was established well before America was even a twinkle in George Washington's eye. Therefore to paint them as instigators is the usual US bashing balderdash.

My argument was that we were involved but only as transport.

Sure, those ship owners made money but so did the Arabs who sold them in the first place and whom you disingenuously whitewash from the argument.

Furthermore as I said, we at least got off our arses and banned it, using British capital and resources to enforce the ban.

Compare that with this quote from my earlier post and you get the drift.

"Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the senior council of Wahhabi clerics responsible for writing Saudi school text books, states: "Slavery is part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam. It has not been abolished.”

Your ire is therefore misplaced. Instead of the knee-jerk whine whenever America comes up why not castigate what is going on right now under our very own noses. Why not denounce the racist Saudi mindset for whom the last 1400 years of reform is a Western abomination? (Apart from the drilling of oil and the wealth it accrues, of course.)

We cannot change the past but sure as hell can affect the future. Instead of the futile handwring and constant apologia of what was, why not aim it at the what is?

Or is that too much of an injection of pragmatic and humanitarian realism?

logdon

Simon Stephenson
August 11th, 2009 9:17am

You miss Verity's point. The market for slaves was established well before America was even a twinkle in George Washington's eye. Therefore to paint them as instigators is the usual US bashing balderdash.

My argument was that we were involved but only as transport.

Sure, those ship owners made money but so did the Arabs who sold them in the first place and whom you disingenuously whitewash from the argument.

Furthermore as I said, we at least got off our arses and banned it, using British capital and resources to enforce the ban.

Compare that with this quote from my earlier post and you get the drift.

"Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the senior council of Wahhabi clerics responsible for writing Saudi school text books, states: "Slavery is part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam. It has not been abolished.”

Your ire is therefore misplaced. Instead of the knee-jerk whine whenever America comes up why not castigate what is going on right now under our very own noses. Why not denounce the racist Saudi mindset for whom the last 1400 years of reform is a Western abomination? (Apart from the drilling of oil and the wealth it accrues, of course.)

We cannot change the past but sure as hell can affect the future. Instead of the futile handwring and constant apologia of what was, why not aim it at the what is?

Or is that too much of an injection of pragmatic and humanitarian realism?

Verity

Simon Stephenson, You were complaining that the British were complicit in slaving. They weren't. The purchasers of slaves were Americans. They were not under the control of the British government. Of course they profited from the slave trave, but they weren't British. French plantation owners in Louisiana also profited. They weren't under the control of the British government, either.

The people who made a profit out of trafficking of humans were the various African tribes who captured and/or tricked their own people into slavery for money (or, more probably, trinkets) ... their payments coming from the Arab slavers who came to pick up fresh supplies. And the end customers, the American plantation owners.

So do us a favour and stop this high-pitched whining against the British. It's getting on my nerves.

Simon Stephenson

logdon / Verity

I do nothing disingenuously.

It took Wilberforce and the abolitionists 20 years of political pressure to overcome the British opposition to the banning of the slave trade, and a further 26 years before this ban was extended to the Empire. The port of Bristol made huge fortunes from its involvement in the trade.

Sure, we were the first formally to outlaw it, and you can celebrate this if you like. Just as long as you don't pretend that there is a quality in the British moral character that prevents us from being involved in such inhuman activity.

We were the first to illegalise because we had a political system that allowed the lawmakers to be shamed into action by vocal opposition - something that the other involved countries did not have. And, incidentally, something that we won't have for much longer if modern politicians have their way.

Criticism is due to all those involved in the trade, not just those from human groupings that 200 years later we choose to think of as baddies.

Verity

Simon Stephenson writes: "Just as long as you don't pretend that there is a quality in the British moral character that prevents us from being involved in such inhuman activity."

I do so "pretend".

1. It's not an "inhuman activity". Animals cannot sell one another into slavery. It's humans and they're still at it. The Arabs are still slaving (including in NYC), as are some E Europeans.

2. English people walked long miles to put their names or their Xs on Wilberforce's petitions against slavery. That they cared so much about a race they'd never even seen speaks very highly of them, as do the sore feet and blisters they had from hiking so many miles to save people they couldn't even imagine.

logdon /Verity - "I do nothing disingenuously."

Well lah de, bloody, dah.

Simon Peters

Ruairidh. Unfortunately the price of doing the right thing, and not forsaking one's principles, is often high, but far better to do the right thing than descend to the levels of bestiality in involving oneself, at whatever distance with torture.

logdon

"Simon Stephenson
August 11th, 2009 8:46pm

Just as long as you don't pretend that there is a quality in the British moral character that prevents us from being involved in such inhuman activity."

Hoisted by your own, yes, disingenuous petard.

If you take the time to read my original post, I make no claim for past British moral infallibility, merely the point that we were eventually revulsed by and evolved from the, then common concept, of the right of ownership of human beings of different ethnicity.

Meanwhile those who our multiculturalists would place on a similar moral plain, do indeed still wholeheartedly endorse that enslavement of people on the basis of race and skin pigmentation.

Here goes, yet again!

"Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the senior council of Wahhabi clerics responsible for writing Saudi school text books, states: "Slavery is part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam. It has not been abolished.”

What part of this quote contains any ambiguity? Yet you, in classic ‘new liberal’ fashion choose to focus on something we were involved in over 200 years ago, the sins of our fathers, rather than the fate of unfortunates probably being sodomised and beaten by their ‘owners’ right now.

We moved on. Judging by the quote, Wahhabi Arabs haven’t.

This argument has reached it’s circular conclusion. My evidence is countered by your out of context selectivity and false narrative which is taking us precisely nowhere.

I suggest that you read a little more on the subject of Islam, it’s history and where it is right now. The self explanatory titled, Islamic Imperialism by Ephraim Karsh is a good place to start.

Ruairidh

Simon: So in my hypothetical example you would refuse intelligence from Saudi Arabia and allow a plot in the UK to run its course least you dirty your hands in torture?

Thank god you are not in charge then Simon.

Simon Peters

Well Ruairidh, imagine if you were an innocent person who was named because someone you knew, being tortured, had to give a name, any name, just to stop the torment. Would that be worth cooperation with Saudi? Or would you rather not be arrested because foreign governments knew that the British Government would always ignore evidence gathered under torture? As everyone knows 'intelligence' gathered under torture is no evidence at all. And if you are so keen on torture why do you not live in Saudi - that must. if torture is efficacious, be the safest country in the world.... oh, hang on....

Ruairidh

If my name was offered up by foreign intelligence then I would expect MI5 to do their duty and investigate me. I would also expect them to find me innocent and drop the enquiry.

You appear to be expecting MI5 to sit on their hands and do nothing if a report comes in about a terrorist plot in the UK. That would be a deriliction of duty. The terrorist threat is international. We need to operate at the level to deal with it and that means cooperating with states that torture. We draw a line at direct involvement or condoning it but taking that principle to the next level is absurd. By your rationale we should withdraw from NATO because of the American excesses in Iraq.

Read my post again. I am not 'keen' on torture. I do not want the British state associated with it but I also live in the real world and realise we cannot expect to completely shut overselves off from it because it is so common in states we need to work with. I do state that used with intelligence it works. The way you describe it '.. had to give a name, any name..' is an example of it used dumbly to extract a valueless confession.

Very poor logic at the end there. The comparison of Saudi to the UK based only on the use or not of torture. Very clever. No the comparison you should consider is how safe is Saudi now compared to how safe it would be if governed by the British police using British methods.

Simon Peters

I admire your optimism that the British police would find you innocent. Of course they might just shoot you and claim you had ignored non existent warnings, while wearing a bulky jacket and vaulting a barrier..... hang on again ..... No your comments ignore the fact that in the real world torture provides misinformation which then spreads the terror. And like doctors, the torturers can always bury their mistakes. That is what should give you pause for thought when parroting the Government line as spread by such intellectuals as Jacqui Smith.

Ruairidh

I don't regard it as optimism becayse my view is based on having seen the inner workings of law enforcement in this country. I’ve never needed commentary from Jacqui Smith to inform me of what is or is not happening. I've seen investigations first hand and I know the burden of proof required and the professionalism with which officers conduct themselves. Imagining that some weak intel from overseas is going to get the police to kick my door down and shoot me is nonsense. It's worse than nonsense it is pernicious conspiracy theorist anti-British nonsense.

‘…No your comments ignore the fact that in the real world torture provides misinformation which then spreads the terror…’ What? You’re presumably thinking about Stalinist purges here not anything from the here and now. Anyway my comments don’t ignore that. Torture used badly as a tool of oppression is a terrible thing. So what? Do you think refusing intel from a state that uses torture will stop them using it for their internal purposes? They will carry on regardless.

No your comments ignore the fact that information obtained from states that use torture has stopped terrorist attacks. But even if you choose to ignore that or disbelieve it your stance is blinkered and prejudice because you are choosing to believe that all intel that could have been obtained by torture is therefore valueless. That is an opinion based on pure wishful thinking and were it ever to be followed by the UK state it would directly lead to the success of future terrorist attacks and not stop a single soul from being tortured.

Simon Peters

Ah, the truth will out - this is a policeman giving a point of view. The mindset if policemen, unfortunately, is that the end always justifies the means, and that they know better than the rest of us. I doubt, therefore, tht anything I can say will alter your mindset, and I know that nothing you can say will rock my belief in leading a life governed by principles, and a fundamental one is that all torture is wrong. Full stop.

Ruairidh

I'm not a policeman.

It's just one prejudice after another with you, except when you rush to premature unrealistic conclusions.

Yes all torture is wrong. Leading a life that cuts yourself off from all contact with it is possible at an individual level. It is not possible to do it at a national level without deliberatly and directly harming the UK.

So I repeat my scenario. In a situation where a foreign power hands you intel you believe is likely to have been obtained by torture you would do nothing. Because in your world it is valueless. My how principled. I'm sure those principles would keep you warm and smug when the bomb goes off.

Ruairidh

Simon: It's just a shame your principles don't extend to eschewing the use of logical fallacies with that sweeping ad hominem attack. Assume I’m a policeman and then ascribe to policemen an apparent arrogance that they think they know better and an ‘end justifies the means’ philosophy that is not present in any of my posts. Juvenile and as it happens, completely wrong. I am neither a policeman nor a believer that the ends justify the means although I do, on the basis of your posts, think I know better than you about the world of counter terrorism and international intelligence cooperation.

You might want to reflect on the fact that that well known supporter of the ‘end justifies the means’ Sami Chakribati disagrees with you in my hypothetical scenario and would act on intelligence received from a foreign source that could have come from torture. (Its in the magazine article on this issue)

You are in the trap of taking a noble principal to an illogical and in this case dangerous and reckless conclusion and now see every attack on the illogical conclusion as an attack on the principal. The issue is much more nuanced than you are allowing for.

Simon Peters

Whether you are in fact a policeman or not, just someone who likes the idea of appearing in the know with jargon like 'intel', is irrelevant - you think like a policeman. Like people who are policemen you believe you know better and that your way is the right way. Your arguments are all, like the Government's, based on frightening 'what if' arguments. As I said earlier - f you believe that all the panoply of state control, ID cards etc., and the weapons of state repression, torture etc., keep you safe, then there are plenty of countries where you can live and see if you really feel safer.

It's like the American argument for allowing all and sundry to carry weapons - it will make life safer. No, it doesn't - it makes life a lot less safe. just like arming policemen here has increased the number of innocent deaths at the hands of the police.

As I said before. Torture is always wrong. And so there, I think, we have to agree to disagree.

Ruairidh

The thing that is annoying me about your line of debate is that you never engage my points. Every post is a straw man attack on things I never said or attacks on opinions you assume I hold. You’ve got a caricature of my position in your head and you attack it every time rather than the argument presented to you.

I’m not disagreeing with you that torture is wrong. You can’t keep saying that as if it proves something or constitutes a dividing line between our positions.

I’m not saying that Saudi’s use of torture makes Saudi a safer place either. I am saying that the Saudi’s and a host of other states use torture and we need to be sensible about how much we can influence that while working with them to mutual benefit against terrorism and organised crime. Whether or not the Saudis should use torture is not part of my argument. There are a host of reasons why they shouldn’t but the fact is they do and no amount of self harming political pressure from us is going to change that.

The thing is your ban on intelligence cooperation with any country that uses torture is but the top of a slippery moral slope.

As you’ll know the UK is a net importer of oil. The oppressive Saudi state (and a load of other users of torture) are reliant on petrodollars. You should never get in petrol or diesel driven car again because to do so would be to support a user of torture. It must be biodiesel all the way for you. Also do you own any items with ‘made in china’ stamped on them? Have you considered that that constitutes economic support of China? The same China that oppresses the Uighars and Tibetans, that kills more people than any other country with the death penalty?

If you truly want your actions to match your principals you shouldn’t provide economic succour to the states that use torture. Do your actions reach this standard?

Would you expect the UK to match them as a state? No trade with any country that uses torture?

Simon Peters

Your point is well made, except that the argument is at one remove. My point is simple, no cooperation with, complicity with, assistance with, conspiracy to, torture.

Clear?

The only slope that is slippery is the one where one says, well ok, I am not really encouraging it, but I will thank the torturer for providing the information, true or false, that he has extracted from someone with the use of agony. I am surprised that you cannot see why that is wrong. But, as I have said before, I can see little point in batting my head against a brick wall to persuade you that your conscience is defective. So though discussion about unrelated matters of trade may be interesting, I can see little point in engaging in them. I can only suggest that, with the help of a friend, you ask someone to torture you for a few moments, and then ask yourself how that would feel, as an innocent, with no real information to reveal.

I believe that a reporter did exactly that with waterboarding where your argument was used by Rumsfeld. I believe the reporter had no doubts in his mind after a very brief experience, that it could never be justified. Maybe if you try it you might see why no other viewpoint is tenable.

Ruairidh

You've done it again.

You've based a long post on the basis that I think torture is justified. Can you actually read?

Simon Peters

Ruairidh, your WHOLE argument has been based on the idea that torture can be justified. One example from your post of August 10th - "Torture used sensibly (if that isn’t an oxymoron) can get you reliable information" I rest my case, and suggest that it may be worth your while to carefully read what you wrote, as I have done.

Ruairidh

Simon it does NOT follow that I therefore think it justified.

You might want to sit down as you'll need to engage your brain here. I said that statement in response to your belief that all information obtained through torture is valueless. It is not valueless. It does not follow that I think torturing someone to get valuable is therefore justified. Understand? Robbing a bank would produce a valuable haul of loot. Does that mean I think it is justifiable to rob banks? If that was your case rested then consider it lost.

Simon Peters

You may wish you could 'unwrite' what you wrote before, but sadly you can't, and the more bluster you use, with comments about my needing to engage my brain, the more I think you have realised you have dug a hole and are in it. My advice? Stop digging.

Ruairidh

This is not bluster it is exasperation and I take nothing back as my posts have been consistent. I cannot imagine how you can continually misrepresent and misunderstand my views. It’s verging on the comical, I’m beginning to think you cannot possibly be this obtuse and are simply toying with me rather than admit you’ve been wrong.

Do you understand the bank robbing analogy? Saying the product of an action produces a valuable result does not mean that the means justify the ends. I have been quite clear on torture that I do not think the means justify the ends. I’ve said it several times. If you really cannot see the difference here then I really do despair for you.

Asking you to engage your brain was a forlorn request I know. Up till then writing as clearly as I could was certainly not getting through to you. Here we go though, one last try.

My argument is not based on torture being justified. It is based on the premise that sometimes information that could have been obtained through torture is true and that those charged with enforcing the law and protecting the public have a duty to act on all information. To turn our backs on data because we fear that it could have been obtained using unethical means would be to knowingly and consciously harm us all. The public enquiry test is always a good one. Imagine if in the aftermath of an intelligence failure and you were asked why you failed to act on a tip-off that could have changed events. Would saying that you feared the ultimate source was a victim of torture be a good enough defence to the charge of incompetence and dereliction of duty? I don’t think it would because investigating that data does not condone how it was obtained. What’s more my argument is that ignoring such data has no impact on the prevalence of torture.

When you read the stories on MPs expenses did you ever consider that the information was effectively stolen and constituted a breach of privacy? By your principals that should mean that you’d take no action on the data because you object to the method by which it was obtained regardless of its validity. I think it is possible to object to the method but still act on the product.

But the repercussions of your policy would go further than that. They would do massive damage to all kinds of law enforcement cooperation over a range of crimes. You’d be in a situation where you would be unable to pass any information overseas for fear that the locals would arrest and torture people connected to it. We could have an address for Osama Bin Laden but your principals would mean we’d do nothing with it.

Simon Peters

What you have written in the past is there for anyone interested to read and to make a judgement. It's clear to me where you stand.

Ruairidh

Very true Simon and I have confidence that if others do labour to the end of this string while not all agreeing with me they will all have a better understanding of my position than you've managed to achieve.

Your lack of nuance and refusal to engage in the grey areas of pragmatism around the central principal and your happy acceptance of the severe damage this would cause are salutary lessons in the risks that conducting an enquiry on this emotive subject would entail.

Simon Peters

I can tell that top of your agenda is having the last word, maybe in your life as much as in this interchange. That's fine - as I say, anyone reading this will have no doubt as to your views, and I dare say they will be able to make up their own minds about my view, whatever your judgements are about my "lack of nuance", whatever that means.