It’s not often I jump to agreement with Amnesty International; not because I’m against them per se, rather because most of the time they don’t register on my radar.  Today though they have.  Iain Dale has posted a recent video by Amnesty which depicts the practice of water-boarding.  Needless to say the ad is rather graphic and communicates strongly the impression that water-boarding is torture:

Is water-boarding torture?  Yes, beyond question.  Or rather it should be beyond question, but isn’t.  It seems to me there are two reasons for this; each reason being applicable to a different set of individuals. 

The first set understand that the debate is largely about image and perception.  They believe torture is necessary in some circumstances (a different argument entirely), but understand that people don’t like the idea of torture (reason number one).  So rather than attempt to convince people that torture (a jus cogens crime) is sometimes acceptable they instead attempt to convince people that a certain act of torture is in fact not torture at all.  What’s best about this strategy is that it doesn’t even matter that most people remain unconvinced, because the argument shifts from the question of whether torture is sometimes ok (the quick settlement of which would lead to swift and mass protest) to whether water-boarding can be considered torture (the settlement of which will not occur anytime soon); in essence the advocates of water-boarding manage to misdirect the attention of their opponents almost entirely. 

The second set are those pathetic authoritarians of old who know nothing of the delicate balance between liberty and security.  These people remain blissfully unaware of the subtle message framing used by those discussed above and instead simply jump for the first thing that looks like a tough approach to terrorism (reason number two).  Amusingly of course they don’t realise that they as much as those on the other side of the argument have fallen into the trap deployed by the above set of individuals. 

So perhaps it’s time we got serious and actually had the debate we’ve been unwillingly, or in some cases willingly, avoiding: do we consider the use of torture acceptable in some circumstances?  And if so what are they? 

The time has long since passed for us to dispense with the charade.