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We in the UK might detain people indefinitely without charge, but at least we aren't considering outsourcing torture. What sort of moral code comes up with the idea that it's ok to torture suspects so long as it's done somewhere else?

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From:

muninnhuginn

As explained here it could happen to a British Citizen all the same.

Question is, I suppose, would this necessitate two plane trips, one to the States and then one to the torture contractor's country?

From:

rdmaughan.livejournal.com

Yes, it would. The UK would need to extradite to the USA. The USA would then extradite to the, shall we call them the "interrogation facilitator"?

I doubt this would happen in practice. The US government is unlikely to risk the fallout from being caught torturing subjects of one of their few allies.

I am also sure it would only happen once. Nowhere in the EC will extradite to the US on a capital crime without a guarantee to not seek the death penalty. If the US shipped a citizen of ours to Eygpt or Syria for torture the EU would probably stop extraditing anyone facing terrorism charges to the US.

From:

muninnhuginn

I doubt this would happen in practice. The US government is unlikely to risk the fallout from being caught torturing subjects of one of their few allies.

I'd be tempted to say "tell that to the British, and other non-US, citizens at Guantanamo Bay", but it'd be a cheap shot.

From:

rdmaughan.livejournal.com

And as far as I can see a pointless and irrelevent one too.

From:

armb.livejournal.com

The US government has been accused of torturing British citizens. The fallout risk appears small.

From:

rdmaughan.livejournal.com

I gave you a snotty reply to this previously because you used a debating trick that has always irritated me.

The "I could say this but I won't because..." trick. This, in my opinion, is just a way of making a cheap shot without getting a reputation as someone who makes cheap shots.

Of course that may not have been deliberate on your part so sorry for the less than polite reply i sent previously.

The rest is a more constructive reply, hopefully.

Guantanamo is obviously not a pleasent place to be sent to. I personally think it is immoral, counterproductive and should be closed down. However I suspect standards of treatment there are orders of magnitudes better than the standards at some of the places the US is considering deporting people to.

As far as I am aware nobody at Guantanamo has been electrocuted or drowned in shit. So we are talking about different levels of abuse.

Any abuse is bad and should be opposed but the levels potentially involved here are different and likely to cause different levels of public outrage.