Torture

The use of torture to extract information from terror suspects and their associates has been headline news for the past few days following an American report on the actions of the CIA. Numerous well-meaning people have supported the premise that "Torture is Wrong".

When I was younger, I would have fully agreed with this statement; However, as I’ve got older I’ve become less idealistic and less certain that the statement is true. Since the end of World War Two, there hasn't been any time when there hasn't been a significant conflict taking place somewhere in the world often with appalling atrocities being carried out by one side or the other, the most recent being ISIS who are prepared to execute someone simply to produce a propaganda video.
 
Sayings such as “fight fire with fire” and the biblical “eye for an eye” seem to have increasing relevance to me when we are up against such evil organisations. Should we opt out of  activities which our enemies are perfectly willing to use? I am aware of the arguments that if one uses the barbaric methods of such people that one then forfeits the moral high ground, but retaining the high ground is no use if you lose the war.

So I now hold the view that there are circumstances under which torture can be justified and blanket statements such as “Torture is Wrong” are themselves wrong. I believe that it is justified when lives are at risk or it can be shown to be for the greater good. There are times when we simply have to trust those who are in charge of protecting us, and trust them to do what is appropriate at the time.

Ideally the invention of a so-called “truth drug” would solve the problem – or would it? Would it be torture to give a captive such a drug against his wishes?

Such a question in itself shows that there is no clear definition of torture; I read today that British troops have been told that when interrogating suspects they must not shout or bang the table! To me this is total madness! The way we are going, we may be morally correct, but the enemy is going to win.

Iraq (& Syria)

I've been reading the arguments about aerial intervention against ISIS in Iraq. I agree with the present proposals, Iraq has asked for help and it should be given where we can, although I have considerable doubt as to what can be achieved from the air. There are times that I suspect that a good old-fashioned Spitfire, using its cannons, could achieve more against a scattered mobile enemy than the latest high-tech bombs.

Syria is a totally different matter; Assad may be a nasty piece of work, but his election as president was at least as legitimate as many others around the world whom we are happy to tolerate. Our intervention against another nasty dictator in Libya has hardly been a roaring success. The fact is that past dictators throughout the Middle and Near East maintained reasonable calm for most ordinary people as long as they kept out of politics, and what has replaced them is largely chaos.

The problems, of course go, back to the time that the British and French carved up the middle east by drawing lines on a map and creating countries which took no account of tribal, ethnic or religious boundaries. It's a bit late now to do anything about it, but I would certainly favour the establishment of a proper Kurdish state if this could be achieved.

My main concern, however, is that the government does not appear to have done much within this country to improve our security from insider attacks. To me, the scandal in Rotherham serves to illustrate how scared our authorities are to do something which might upset the Muslim population, and one fears that they could be looking the other way with regards to security issues just as they did with abuse. Preventing potential jihadists from leaving the country by withdrawing passports hardly seems a solution, and stamping something across their passports like "Not Valid for Entry into UK" would seem a more sensible approach, even if it is against EU law. Forcing these potential jihadists to stay in the country surely increases the risk of terrorist action by these dissidents.

According to the Mail, the government has agreed to buy 20 Tomahawk missiles at a cost of over a million pounds each for use against ISIS. As I noted above, it is hard to see how these would be of much use against a scattered enemy, and seems to illustrate the problems of using high-tech weapons against a low-tech enemy, and I suspect that they will be no more use against ISIS than they would have been against the IRA in Northern Ireland.

My view, for what it is worth, is that the £20,000,000 would have provided better protection for UK residents if it had been spent on the security services and improved border control.

ISIS in Britain

The Telegraph reports that

The Prime Minister warned that the current crisis in Iraq must not be dismissed as a foreign problem because the same terrorists are planning to “attack us here at home in the United Kingdom”. 

Unfortunately,  other than drawing the public's attention to the problem, he gives no indication as to what the government is proposing to do about the problem.
His reported responses, at Question Time in Parliament, cast no light on what steps, if any, the government is proposing to take, other than telling us that:
British born extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria now represent the most serious threat to our security.

This, and his other answers, when examined closely, amount to little more than meaningless waffle. Clearly he believes that having drawn attention to the problem he has done his duty and the problem will go away. He tells us that:
The right answer is to be long term, hard-headed, patient and intelligent with the interventions that we make, and the most important intervention of all is to make sure that these governments are fully representative of the people who live in their countries, that they close down the ungoverned space, and they remove the support for the extremists.

What on earth has that got to do with the threat that within this country caused by returning extremists?

The United States has laws by which they can ban people from visiting proscribed countries without specific permission. Of course this does not stop anyone going to these countries, but if, on returning, there is evidence that they have been to such countries, they can be charged with a criminal offence and imprisoned if found guilty.

Surely, as a minimum, we could do the same. Were the government to declare ISIS as an enemy of this country, one would have thought that any British Citizens consorting with them would be guilty of treason, and here my only regret is that the Blair government removed the death penalty for treason.
Additionally, it would appear that many of those going to the Middle East from this country are not British Citizens, but "refugees" or "asylum seekers" with "leave to remain". This "leave" can be withdrawn and the Home Office should make it clear that this will be done in the case of anyone who visits the Middle East. If they willingly return to the countries from which they came, they are hardly refugees!

Cameron has admitted that extremists present a grave danger to this country, now he has to show that he is taking real action rather than talking about the problem.