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Damn it Miliband, D!
what am i to do now eh?
first cruddas comes out in support of him, then i listen to DM on the guardian podcast.
i've never liked David Miliband, and he's been in 4th place. but the faults and inexperience of the other 3 have always left the door a bit ajar for him.
whilst i didn't like much of what he said, the bit at the end when they got onto the really serious stuff impressed me. he was talking about balancing torture again human rights and i think he was very good. i personally am more on the side of security than human rights provided certain conditions are met, e.g. ticking bomb or certainty. if, for example, you are certain someone is a terrorist i have no problem with them being tortured as i believe someone who sets out to indiscriminately kill innocent people is a far greater risk to freedom than upholding freedom through torture, personally.
Miliband wasn't nearly so up front as that, but he certainly didn't rule it out and made the case for that sort of progmatism in light of the necessities.
the alternative is the risk that innocent people die and terrorists have their rights to do this upheld
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4 comments:
"ticking bomb or certainty. if, for example, you are certain someone is a terrorist i have no problem with them being tortured as i believe someone who sets out to indiscriminately kill innocent people is a far greater risk to freedom than upholding freedom through torture,"
Ok but apart from vindictiveness whats the point? torture in real life is a VERY unreliable method of extracting information from a suspect. Especially one who was already committed to laying there lives down for the cause and take civilians with them.
A ticking time bomb is probably the most stupid scenario you could use to justify torture. If there guilty then they know how much time is left and that all they have to do is hold out long enough for things to sort themselves out. And since your resorting to these tactics its pretty clear you have few if any leads to go on thus given the suspect ample opportunity to further hinder you by lying.
Can you honestly name one case were torture of any kind has been successful in getting anything other then a highly suspect confession? This talk about balance and tough measures is nothing more then an attempt to look strong for the papers just like I.D. cards.
i can't name any instance, that's what the security forces are for. i think if the people whose job this is want to try torture if they believe it will save the lives on innocents, i'm willing to give it a go
"that's what the security forces are for." Then why haven't they named an any instances? or a case were they feel reasonably sure that torture would have worked? "i think if the people whose job this is want to try torture if they believe it will save the lives on innocents," Ok leaving aside the opposition from sectors of the security services to this how will you know thats there motive? in every instance of legalised torture the aim has been to extract confessions thats it, not to protect innocents but to beef up the conviction rate.
Torture for information gathering is hollywood myth to make spy films gritty and interesting plain and simple, that at best security chiefs and politicians latch on to to make them appear macho and tough, at worst its a smoke screen to justify the intimidation of opponents.
I don't have any facts to back up what i'm saying, i'm just speculating. if torture doesn't work then it shouldn't be used, but i'm saying i have no philosophical opposition to someone being tortured if there's a chance innocent lives can be saved.
any opposition i would have would be only on how successful it is, rather than anything about human rights. i do believe in human rights by the way, for what it's worth.
i would be happy to debate the effectivness of torture if i had some facts and figures for both sides. as i don't, i can't on that score
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