Torture: The greased pig of our perilous existence

Canada’s military is deeply integrated into that of the US. Since the 2004 torture scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison it is well known the US has been practicing torture. Only the utterly naïve would be believe that Canada’s military could avoid being complicit in torture and the breaking of international law in this close and utterly compliant relationship. It now remains to be seen how many other NATO countries serving there are also complicit in torture. The British army for one is embroiled in a series of torture accusations dating back to the Iraq war.



As long as this not so cuddly little pig has the run of the house all of us get smeared and the blame does not lie totally with our leaders. We too are refusing to wrestle this not so cuddly little pig as we drift toward being torture tolerant societies. Stark testimony to this is not only our lack of outrage to torture connected to the less than authentic war on terror but also domestic torture. Domestic torture comes in the form of our apparent tolerance for the use of the tasers by our police forces. Both the UN and Amnesty International consider the taser a form of torture. It was never intended as a lethal weapon, but it now has a proven lethality, and a growing list of victims...