Nancy Lockhart, president of the Canadian Club, introduced this week’s speaker as someone who deals with tough questions such as whether it is okay to torture one person to save hundreds.

Hmm, could be interesting. It was a case where the intro outdid the performance, since the speaker, Kenneth Roth of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, didn’t address her question. Instead, he spoke on dubious practices of the U.S. government.

That’s too bad since I think the dilemma has perplexed many people since 9/11, and more so recently, after U.S. lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a defender of individual rights, argued for legal torture in some instances.

He tried to soften it, invoking “non-lethal torture, say, a sterilized needle underneath the nail,” which “would violate the Geneva [Conventions], but, you know, countries all over the world” do.

And he’d like “torture warrants” issued, to maintain judicial control. His key argument concerned “ticking bomb” cases, in which a prisoner has likely knowledge of a planted bomb or attack but won’t give it up. I mean, wouldn’t you do it then?

It’s also a shame that Mr. Roth didn’t take up the challenge, since he has debated Alan Dershowitz on CNN. There, he called the prohibition of torture “absolute,” like the taboo against attacking civilians in war.

But what about the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima? That has rarely been morally condemned in the U.S.

He mockingly said torture warrants might lead to “terrorism warrants.” But I don’t think it’s far-fetched to imagine the U.S. having applied for one of those in the 1980s, on behalf of the Nicaraguan contras it funded, which would have at least avoided the bizarre definition of those mugs as “freedom fighters.”

Let me pause to say how I might have answered the Dershowitz argument: A decision to approve torture would be terribly hard to make; good thing we don’t have to make it.

That’s because the ticking bomb is a tortuously constructed hypothetical case that plays on our anxieties about terror, but, in reality, such a thing will rarely be the actual focus of any U.S. action.

The prisoners it holds illegally in Guantanamo are there not because they have information on terror but because they might join the opposition if they went home.

George W. Bush said this week the U.S removed an Iraqi regime “which threatened our security and held the American people hostage.” But that regime did neither, and the U.S. has stopped trying to prove it.

Its occupation has already served to “fuel” more terror in the region, as the Saudis “repeatedly” warned, according to The New York Times, and which proved correct this week.

There are many reasons for torture, which the U.S. has often funded or trained others for — in Latin America, Saudi Arabia and Israel, which admits it.

But the aims of torture are mostly to provide information on opponents or intimidate them, or cow large populations, even though the torture is justified otherwise.

That’s where the ticking bombs come in. As my consulting philosopher, Frank Cunningham, says: “Suppose one guy discovers the only cure for cancer but won’t give it out.” As my jaw plunges, he nods and says, “Amazing the things we can come up with.”

“We have to understand the United States sets a model for the world,” Kenneth Roth said on CNN, adding that if the U.S. legitimates torture, “unsavoury regimes” will use it as an excuse, too.

This is where I really want to argue with the speech not given. The whole moralizing, ethicizing, humanrightsizing of foreign policy decisions by big powers such as the U.S., U.K. and Russia is a red herring.

It’s just the latest rhetoric they’ve devised for their often transparent self-interests.

If human rights is the centre of a foreign policy, argues David Chandler in a recent book on “human rights and international intervention,” then how come only big powers get to invoke it? You don’t expect Chechnya, Iraq or Cuba to attack Russia or the U.S., even if they could devise a half-plausible “rights” claim.

The whole “humanitarian” approach, well-defended by ethicists and ideologues, circles into a justification of the powerful doing what they want. Might is (human) rights. And larded onto it is the sanctimonious mewling of their apologists about which “ethical” criteria permit “us” to torture “them,” though never, of course, the reverse.

To be honest, faced with a true case of a ticking bomb, I think most of us, me included, would likely approve any means needed. It might not even be a hard decision to make; it would just feel hideous.

The real trick is keeping our eye on what is actually occurring, rather than on loaded scenarios constructed to frighten and divert us. By the way, did you notice the “terrorism” exercises in Seattle, Vancouver and Chicago this week?

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.