I brought up Canada because I'm Canadian.....so i know about some of things we do, more than i would about say, americans or brits. Also, I did a lot of work around security certificates (lovely little bits of canadian legislation that allows us to detain, without charges, anyone we like if we htink they may, possibly, perhaps, could have had something to do with someone or something that may possibly be defined perhaps as terrorism, without showing them the evidence against them, etc etc). What i'm getting at is there are many forms of torture, and i think for too long western countries have gotten away with hypocrisy because we just aren't as honest about our disregard for human rights.
I honestly think the worst thing to come out of the whole war on terror was how quickly we abandoned the idea of universal rights; the idea being that if it's OUR citizen there are one set of rules, but if it's someone elses? or better still, if it's someone living in our country without citizen ship, they can be denied the basic rights we grant everyone else- however since they aren't citizens, well hey, we didn't do anything wrong and can still crow smugly about our diplomatic excellence. to paraphrase Hannah Arendt there is nothing worse than being between the system.
I brought up Canada because I'm Canadian.....so i know about some of things we do, more than i would about say, americans or brits. Also, I did a lot of work around security certificates (lovely little bits of canadian legislation that allows us to detain, without charges, anyone we like if we htink they may, possibly, perhaps, could have had something to do with someone or something that may possibly be defined perhaps as terrorism, without showing them the evidence against them, etc etc). What i'm getting at is there are many forms of torture, and i think for too long western countries have gotten away with hypocrisy because we just aren't as honest about our disregard for human rights.
I honestly think the worst thing to come out of the whole war on terror was how quickly we abandoned the idea of universal rights; the idea being that if it's OUR citizen there are one set of rules, but if it's someone elses? or better still, if it's someone living in our country without citizen ship, they can be denied the basic rights we grant everyone else- however since they aren't citizens, well hey, we didn't do anything wrong and can still crow smugly about our diplomatic excellence. to paraphrase Hannah Arendt there is nothing worse than being between the system.