The English and Torture

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers writes to him with some background on torture in English history.

But the key to all this litany of pain is that the English stopped torturing, at least officially. The last torture warrant dates from 1642, just before the start of the Civil War. Several reasons have been advanced for the forgoing of torture as a tool of investigation or the discovery of evidence. But the two most pertinent were the recognition that information under torture was not reliable, and even more significant, that the English jury system allowed for juries to find fact, thus eliminating the need to have a confession to prove guilt. In other words: if you trust the rule of law, you don't need to act in ways that would make Jesus weep.

Andrew also addresses one of his critic's notions that his beliefs on torture are "subjective arguments."

My view of what torture is is grounded in the plain language of US law, in the plain English of what torture has always meant, and in the clear precedents of American legal and military judgment. It is based on the Geneva Conventions, American law, American history and the consensus of the entire civilized world for a very long time. And it is grounded in what conservatives themselves used to say about the subject - when waterboarding was used by the Khmer Rouge, when hypothermia, sleep deprivation and stress positions were used by the KGB and when the exact techniques used by Bush were deployed by the frigging Gestapo.

Sigh. How far we have fallen as a nation when we can have serious debates about torture instead being able to stand united in condemning someone who thought it was the proper course of conduct. Sadly, it doesn't seem Bush's latest pick for Attorney General is going to fix things. He won't say whether or not waterboarding and other specific techniques are actually torture or not.