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The United Nations was set up to prevent war and its attendant crimes against humanity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention, among many, explicitly prohibited the practice of torture. In practice, the northern hemisphere frequently condemned the undemocratic regimes in the southern hemisphere who used torture to remain in power. In reality, several states in the North pioneered new forms of torture that left no physical marks on its victims.

Unfortunately, in the wake of 9/11 and the Bush administration's declaration of the War on Terror, some intellectuals in the North openly called for the reinstatement of torture as a weapon of democratic states. The torture advocates were primarily members of the Bush administration including the eventual US attorney general. Coercive interrogation was advocated against the unlawful combatants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban which ultimately freed US interrogators from prosecution. In December 2002, US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sanctioned hooding, isolation, stress positions, 20 hour interrogations, dietary adjustment as well as the use of dogs in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay. In April 2003, Rumsfeld declared he would allow any interrogation method thereby allowing for any technique being requested on a cae by case basis.

The Bush administration's willingness to justify torture allowed liberal commentators to declare their complicity in this torture.

Legal commentators declared that a potential terrorist atrocity provided a moral right to torture suspects. If a captured terrorist refused to disclose the location of a planted bomb which might result in many fatalities then how should the authorities act? This is an intellectual fait accompli, because we are damned by engaging in torture but a refusal to engage in torture results in the murder of innocent people. Torture's illegality may be therefore legalised as needs dictate. What are the chances of capturing a suspect with a ticking bomb? This last question is so improbable that it should not be the basis of law and national security. Overall there is a moral ambiguity towards torture or coercive interrogations that it can only facilitate its return into mainstream practice.

Torture should be unequivocally and absolutely condemned so that it is recognised by everyone, especially international governments, as unacceptable. Indecision as to its permissibility in exceptional circumstances only serves to facilitate the evil of torture.

The morally degraded climate generated by the Bush administration created an environment for the practice of torture that took place in Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Torture is far from resolved. The policy of rendition, whereby terrorists are kidnapped and removed to torture friendly countries continues to flourish. The principle of the lesser evil of torture is actually the principle of despair. This is not the right way for any society.

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