James Bond vs Johnny English?- MI6 torture complicity.
August 10, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8188307.stm
Everybody who is British wants to think of our secret service warriors with pride as righteous and morally upright heroes only doing what is strictly necessary to put those ‘baddies’ in their place and to foil their evil schemes. With regards to terrorism though, it becomes difficult to see logically how our golden crusaders can extract information from someone who was willing to blow themselves into smithereens for a cause they believe in with a stern talking to, a slap and a tickle, an offer of amnesty or admittance into a witness protection program.
Most people like James Bond, see him as a soldier and hyper-efficient, clearly ridiculously so at what he does. He is also generally perceived as righteous in the methods he uses for his cause, he has a license to kill and uses it frequently. Obviously we all know that two wrongs don’t make a right and to torture someone to prevent their plan or collusion to a plan to end the lives of hundreds of innocent people of coming to fruition isn’t an honorable or positive thing but is it for the greater good?
People don’t seem to have a problem with these people being shot in the defense of the realm and it’s citizens but torture is a step to far with human rights legislation- is this absurdity? Is it somehow worse to physically hurt people than kill them- truth be told it doesn’t sit will the thought of it, its not savoury, but unjustifiable? of course some things can never be justified and shouldn’t be, also everyone has their own view on what constitutes ‘torture’ i don’t advocate anything life-threatening or too vulgar but I wonder how many people who would have died if terrorist plans were completed would be glad of methods used?
Do we want a penetrative and capable secret service- able to do their job whilst obviously still accountable for their actions at every stage for the exact level of application to an internal jury of peers much like the medical model? or one with their hands so tied in litigation they go from James Bond to Johnny English? The best form of defense- attack. There are some things as the general public we just don’t like to comprehend, but it isn’t our place to. As a pubic we are quick to point the finger when a mistake is made, security breached and a death toll commences.
