The End Justifies the Means

At one time, Communists were condemned, by people who had read neither Marx nor Lenin, for believing just that. It’s not a criticism one hears much any more, mainly because those most virulent anti-communists the American authorities clearly and openly believe that their ends justify their means: any means whatsoever.

Including, of course, torture. I won’t say much about the just-published report into the CIA’s use of ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’, (their phrase for torture done by or on behalf of America) because it only confirms what anybody not wearing blinkers already knew. I have a photograph of 'Water-boarding' being done at Guantanamo, but I won't sully this blog by posting it. All I want to say is that in all the talk about whether torture ‘works’, whether the ‘information’ it elicits is ‘reliable’, etc. etc., one word is conspicuous by its absence:

WRONG.