What civilised society tolerates the terrible truth about torture?

MAGNUS LINKLATER


NOTHING," said Winston Churchill, "can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation."

What, then, would he have made of a civilisation which not only imprisons unpopular citizens but abuses them, threatens them with violence, extracts information from them by torture, deprives them of food and sleep and uses them for the amusement of their guards?

What, more to the point, do we conclude about such a civilisation? Are we shocked and disgusted, or do we shrug our shoulders and turn our backs? I ask, because in the past week we have learned terrible things about how some prison systems in the West have begun to treat those inmates whom it views as lesser beings - terrorist suspects, asylum-seekers or just plain, ordinary criminals.

Last week Channel Four lifted the curtain on how in this, the first decade of the 21st century, brutality of the kind which so appalled us at Abu Ghraib has become embedded in some of the penitentiaries of the United States. We then began to hear about it in our own prisons and detention centres: an undercover BBC team filmed guards at a privately run asylum centre in England, giving a fair impression of Gestapo tactics as they intimidated and terrorised those who had been put in their charge. Finally, a hearing into the death of an Asian youth at a young offenders’ institution outside London was given evidence that he died as a result of a cruel game played by warders. It involved putting incompatible prisoners together in a cell, then betting on when a fight would break out. The game ended when the Asian was killed by his cell-mate - a racist white youth. <snip>

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=246112005

our role models these days. I can't decide which sickens me more - that the United States is doing this or the shrugs of the American people in reaction to the news. The feeling seems to be as long as they aren't white males anything goes.

Not only have the terrorists won I think they've lapped us.

"If the world’s leading democracy is prepared to erode first principles, to condone the kind of behaviour most of us would regard as unacceptable, then values that should be rock-solid are being fatally undermined.

"A moral compromise, beginning at the top, rubs off on others further down the line, and they will conclude that it is the right and even the duty of those responsible for the supervision of prisoners, to bully and intimidate them, rather than care for their welfare. Churchill was right to say that a fair and equitable penal system lies at the heart of a healthy civilisation. We should defend it at all costs. Condemnation of abuses that threaten it should be immediate and unequivocal. This is more than just a liberal cause, it is a matter of basic principle - and it involves us all."

societies say "we don't do this...it's abhorent"

Gotta keep it under wraps or you lose your moral edge, right?

the use of abuse and torture. The Military and CIA have also done so. It comes as no surprise when the troops carry it out.

The CIA ships people elsewhere to be tortured and Bush is quoted on how the US doesn't do torture, would never tolerate torture, etc. BWAHAHA