Comments on: Britain’s Torture Troubles: What Tony Blair Knew

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:34:34 +0000

Hi Matthias,
Good to hear from you, and thanks for stressing the perils for us all of the “operational” use of torture. You’re quite right, of course, as Lord Brown’s opinion demonstrates so chillingly. We still have a long way to go …

By: Mathias

Mathias — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:26:57 +0000

By the way, it’s ‘the Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism’ – you have quite a lot of human rights rapporteurs in the UN system

By: Mathias

Mathias — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:25:43 +0000

Unfortunately, the biggest problem is NOT about using such intelligence in the courtroom, but their ‘operational’ use (see also Milliband’s comments of a couple of days ago). In the same 2005 judgment you quote, there’s also Lord Brown saying:
“Generally speaking it is accepted that the executive may make use of all information it acquires: both coerced statements and whatever fruits they are found to bear. Not merely, indeed, is the executive entitled to make use of this information; to my mind it is bound to do so. It has a prime responsibility to safeguard the security of the state.”

THIS is the biggest problem of current counter-terrorism policies in the world.

One more thing: we haven’t seen the last page yet in the history of the UK’s involvement between 2002 and 2005 in the war on terror………