Don't use torture to fight terror

Detaining people in secret prison camps without recourse to legal procedures is not just morally wrong, it is effectively useless. People in those situations, especially children, will tell their interrogators just what they want to hear or what they believe will save them from torture.

In the so-called war on terror, using methods of terror is counter-productive. The greatest strength America or any country has in fighting terror is legal process, open and accountable. No army, no satellite, no terrain-hugging missile is as powerful or as damaging to terrorists as fully-functioning and efficient courts where the case against them can be made clearly and succinctly.

Let us suspend belief for a moment and for the sake of argument say that the Central Intelligence Agency was spot-on in identifying children as young as seven as terror suspects and locking them up. Now look at the damage that would have been done to the terrorists' cause by producing them and their plots to murder and maim in court. Instead, all the evidence against these men, women and children has been kept secret at a time when the White House was, and still is, craving good publicity and would welcome court convictions against terrorists. President George W. Bush's rating would soar if a US court found these people guilty. Instead the full might of the CIA has been deployed to keep ghost prisoners in secret camps allowing the US president the ability to deny that the camps exist.

It is right to fight terror and the threat of terror. But the way to do it is not in dark isolated cells in secret detention camps but in the full glare of maximum publicity to reveal the twisted minds of terrorists. Secret detention camps do immense damage to the campaign against terror.