Torture enthusiasts are in the line of British fire
Richard Ackland; 29/8/08
Remember that clutch of outspoken and confident lawyers who in last year’s torture debates bravely came out for the freedom to torture? They seemed mostly to be from Melbourne. One was a professional loud mouth, whose name I’ve forgotten, and there was another fellow from one of the Victorian academic centres who also saw the value in an appropriate bit of torture. Extreme scenarios were posed. What if a detainee knew where the bomb was located that was timed to blow up Parliament House. Well, torture away until you got the answer. Dick Cheney helpfully chimed in, “It’s a no brainer”. The only trouble now is that it’s unlikely the torturees can even be tried for their alleged crimes. Their confessions are not worth the trouble, or as the judges say, “the evidence is unreliable”. Increasingly this is the truth facing the last spluttering moments of the Bush Administration.