The tying of hands: the torture debate (cont’d)
Saturday, November 5, 2005
Regarding the Senate resolution put forward by John McCain and others, asking for a clear prohibition of torture, it has been reported many times during the last two weeks that Cheney and Rumsfeld oppose the resolution because they “do not want their [i.e. the CIA’s] hands to be tied.”
Contrast this, from the respected (and by no means consistently liberal) Michael Ignatieff:
“It is the very nature of a democracy that it not only does, but should, fight with one hand tied behind its back. It is also in the nature of democracy that it prevails against its enemies precisely because it does ” (from The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror).
