Torture memos

[DanaC]

Just to step aside from the main thrust of this debate for a moment; I think it's also worth considering the effect of torture on those who perform the interrogations. We expect our soldiers to cope with all kinds of nasty and brutalising realities; often without truly understanding the effects of such experiences on their psyches; or without providing proper and effective methods of lessening the impact.

Those who torture suspects on 'our' behalf,* do so according to their orders; and are therefore exposed, by us, to something potentially even more brutalising than violent death.

*ostensibly, the British state neither condones torture (of any kind) nor accepts information derived from torture. In reality our intelligence services have been fundamentally implicated in both condoning and then utilising information gathered through the torture of suspects: most particularly those subject to the 'extraordinary renditon' system.