*Ethics, Torture and the War on Terror - Edge Hill University Public Lecture Series 2008*

Ethics, Torture and the War on Terror , Edge Hill University , Public Lecture Series 2008


28th Feb 08 - Richard Jackson - 6pm

1st April 08 - Moazzam Begg - 6pm

10th  April 08 - Bob Brecher - 6pm

1st May 08 - Craig Murray - 6pm


Cost: Admission is free to all events.

Location: Edge Hill University, Ormskirk Campus


Format

5.00pm - welcome drinks

6.00pm – lecture

7:15pm - light refreshments


Bookings: To book a place please contact Mark McGovern,

email: mcgoverm@edgehill.ac.uk or call 01695 584621



28.02.08 Richard Jackson

The Banality of Torture in the War on Terror


Richard Jackson is Reader in the Department of International Politics,Aberystwyth University. In this lecture Richard Jackson will argue that torture is a core strategy of the War on Terror, conceived and sanctioned at the highest political levels and used far more widely than typically acknowledged. He will seek to explain why this widespread use of torture is in fact, wholly unsurprising and from one perspective, entirely banal. He will explore how a ‘torture-supporting culture’ has been constructed in Western societies by political elites, the media and certain academics over the past few years. He will argue that a significant proportion of the public now accepts that torture may sometimes be necessary in the fight against terrorism. Jackson argues that the torture policy is immoral, dangerous to democratic society, ineffective, counter-productive and should be abolished.


01.04.08 Moazzam Begg

Is Torture Ever Justified?

 
British-born Moazzam Begg, is spokesman for the Human Rights organisation, Cage prisoners. Drawing on his own experiences as this lecture will focus on the effects of the War on Terror and detention without trial. In 2001, he travelled to Kabul with his family to establish a school and water amenities for Afghanis. When the allied attack on Afghanistan was launched, Begg and his family moved to Islamabad in Pakistan for safety. They were seized by Pakistani police and CIA officers and taken back to Kabul where Begg was held in a windowless cellar for nearly a year. Ultimately he was taken to Guantanamo Bay. He spent a total of three years imprisoned during which time he says he was subjected to more than 300  interrogations, death threats and a series of horrific tortures. When I was first asked to make a presentation for the Law Society in 2005, I thought I’d find myself out of my depth. Delivering speeches to solicitors, legal experts, activists and peers were not the sort of thing I was used to in my life prior to my incarceration. But the subject matter of the presentation seemed to me to be a rather open and shut case: Is Torture Ever Justified? No. End of presentation. So why is it that lawyers are faced with this question today, in the 21st century, here in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Western Europe or the USA? According to the law of this country, international law, military law, conventions and treaties torture is not an option - it is unlawful. But the question we face here is not one of legality. It’s about morality - or the lack of it. It’s about a political desire to redefine the use of torture and its application, and to make it acceptable to the masses, because ‘the rules of the game changed.’


10.04.08 Bob Brecher

Why torture is wrong:everywhere;always


Bob Brecher is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Brighton and Director of its Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics. His published works include Torture and the Ticking Bomb (Blackwell Press, Oxford, 2007).
His lecture will offer a critical analysis on recent attempts to argue for and justify the legalization of interrogational torture as an accepted weapon in the War on Terror. Focussing in particular on the utilitarian arguments of America’s leading civil rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz in the so-called ‘ticking bomb’ scenarios, Brecher examines the practical implications for policy, the empirical question of the efficacy of torture, as well as its ethical
implications. As a result, he suggests, torture is never the ‘least bad option’, does not work, even in ticking bomb scenarios and is always wrong.



01.05.08 Craig Murray

Truth, Torture and the War on Terror


Craig Murray discusses his experience with the use of torture by the intelligence services when he was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004. Drawing on twenty years official service on intelligence matters with the highest security clearances both sides of the Atlantic, he argues that torture is being used to provide "intelligence" for propaganda purposes, and warns that we should not believe much of the government narrative of the "War on Terror".

Great stuff. Just the sort of thing which that 'Peace' Studies dept. at Bratford Uni should be putting on.