As a related aside, what does everyone make of this Churchill reference in Obama's speech? The story is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/30/obama-waterboarding-mistakeFirstly, I cant find any reference to Churchill making a public statement in 1940 against torture. If Obama based his comment (as appears likely) on Andrew Sullivan's writings then he is, quite simply, wrong. The Sullivan piece is here, and it is objectionable for its own reasons:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/churchill-vs-cheney.htmlSecondly, during 1940 Britain - under Churchills leadership - was engaged in locking large numbers (1000+) of "enemy aliens" and British citizens up, without trial and against Habeas Corpus. This includes Mosley, who was the subject of the Churchill quote, and who had been imprisoned without trial between 1940 and 1943, and who would continue to be under house arrest until the end of the war. Most of these detainees were held on the Isle of Man eventually.
Finally, as even Sullivan's piece notes, while the commandant of that camp did not physically mistreat his inmates, he did deprive them of sleep, drug them, get them drunk - and all the while having the ultimate punishment (and not one with a battery of lawyers, or a baying media) readily available to him with which to threaten the spies. One wonders what Amnesty International would make of such methods.
