Via MI5 chief Jonathan Evans defends ‘torture intelligence’ – Times Online , we learn the MI5 chief’s position on complicity with torture:
The Director General of MI5 has issued a powerful defence of Britain’s co-operation with intelligence agencies in America and other countries accused of the abuse and torture of detainees, saying they had stopped “many attacks” in the aftermath of the September 11 strikes.
Speaking for the first time about charges of MI5 complicity in the abuse of suspects overseas, Jonathan Evans said Britain had had to get overseas help at the time of the strikes on New York’s World Trade Centre as its own knowledge of al Qaeda was inadequate and the terrorist network might have hit again “imminently”.
I am reminded of Pitt the Younger’s remarks in a 1783 speech to Parliament:
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
