Amidst the general feelings of abhorrence brought forth by the revelations about the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, those of us who supported the war in Iraq as a liberation of the Iraqi people from Baathist dictatorship have had a more particular reason to feel appalled. For it was precisely because that regime was one which permitted and practised torture and other unforgiveable crimes on the scale it did that it was an appropriate object, for us, of external intervention and removal. The project to remove it which it was right to support, and whose completion through the achievement of a sovereign, democratic Iraq it remains right, even now, to see through, has been shamefully and irreversibly tainted by what was done by American soldiers in that notorious prison. It is not to the point to say that the abuses were not, either in nature or scale, comparable to the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime. The practice of torture, just as such, is an unmixed and inexcusable evil; it is an abomination. Correspondingly, the prohibition of torture should be a moral absolute in any civilized national polity, as it has over time become within the law of the community of nations. Along with the prohibitions of other core crimes against humanity - genocide amongst them - the prohibition of torture comes under the doctrine of jus cogens: it is a peremptory norm binding all states, and from which none may opt out; it protects a right from which derogation is not allowed even in war or national emergency. The prohibition of torture is not a moral and legal restraint of the kind which it is permissible to transgress just provided the transgression is not too 'extreme'. And one reason for this, I would say further, is that the violation of bodily, mental and emotional integrity which the restraint exists to protect people against perpetrates a wrong which is irredeemable, an evil upon whomever is made to suffer it that can never be fully made good.
This is why I wrote in an earlier post that, in the matter of torture (and the same would go for other crimes against humanity), it is wrong to suggest that the US or Britain is to be held to a higher standard than others (Baathist Iraq, for a pertinent example). I disagreed with that suggestion when it was put forward in a Guardian editorial, and I disagree with it still, after seeing the same thing written by someone with whom I'm rather more often in harmony than I have lately been with the editorials of that newspaper - I mean Christopher Hitchens. One might try, I suppose, to give the suggestion an uncontroversial interpretation by taking it to mean simply that we should hold the US and Britain to a higher standard than was actually observed by Saddam Hussein's regime. But such a reading of it backfires horribly. The US and Britain have been operating according to a higher standard than that, but what the Abu Ghraib revelations demonstrate is that the standard hasn't been anywhere near good enough.
No, the two main countries of the Coalition should not be held to a higher standard than anyone else over torture, because they should be held to the highest, and the only, standard in this matter - and so should every other government. The use of torture is impermissible everywhere and always. It is a gross and unconscionable crime. The Abu Ghraib abuses have irretrievably disfigured the project to free and democratize Iraq. The best that can now be done is to try to make amends as far as is possible: to bring to justice all those directly responsible for the brutalities, and anyone in a position of immediate authority over them who may have knowingly encouraged or allowed their acts; to hold accountable anyone, up to the very highest level, who may have turned a blind eye to what was going on; to compensate the victims; and to find a way of making solemn and substantial public apology and reparation to the people of Iraq.