In the balance of Terror – should morality be put on pause?

The Independent on Sunday has come out with a veritable mound of shocking documents having appeared to work with the Human Rights Watch campaign organisation in starting the diligent and timely process of sorting through the newly captured office of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Libya; Moussa Koussa with all his communications and correspondence documents up for the taking.

It appears that fiction has become fact - Welcome to Spooks!

They appear to spell out the details we already knew; that Blair and Bush were pushing the international community to accept Gaddafi as the ‘Great North African Reformer’ and not the ‘WMD Wielding Psycho’ that he really was and may quite possibly be today. Additionally to the ‘warming up of relations’ the Indy has detailed a timeline of lobbying by Nelson Mandela no less on behalf of Gaddafi and further cooperation between Libya, the CIA and the British’ Secret Intelligence Service, nominally known as MI6!!!

From speech writing, assisting in the capture of Libyan rebels and their transfer on CIA ‘black site’ flights to actively participating in interrogation sessions headed by Libyan security and even refusing asylum to Gaddafi opposition who were trying to flee to the UK. This is said to have started around 2002, under a Labour’ Blair government that appears to have lost its senses and pressed the pause button on governmental morality and quite possibly their own as well.

Lockerbie, murder of WPc Yvonne Fletcher, Active assistance to IRA and the holding of WMD are some of the actions and threats that the Gaddafi administration (sorry, I meant dictatorship) has committed and used against the security of the UK over the years. Why on earth, after all of this is considered, would you then actively assist them in committing further Human Rights atrocities and the simultaneous laying down of your own moral code.

I’m surprised Nelson Mandela saw the potential of goodness in Gaddafi but from our international perspective, many of his enemies belonged to groups who were also our enemies. Does that mean we should consider the Arabian proverb; ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’? I don’t believe so because we have the international responsibility to uphold UN resolutions and our own high standing sovereign law in the areas of Human Rights and Intelligence operations.

How far is too far in seeking information to protect us?

However, that said, we do have the balance of morality, the concept of cause and effect and the gut feelings of right and wrong to consider. Could it be said that government officials have to suspend their own morality in order to pause the national morality for the good of its citizens? Is the torturing of one man balanced against the saving of 3000 lives disgustingly acceptable or a step too far? Many of us will never be in that pressure-set environment which is government in which to know all the facts and needs of the nation and how they can result in actions that would have appeared abhorrent to the very same people when sat on the Opposition benches. To me, today, assisting, abetting and working with international criminals in torture, the removal of people’s fundamental Human Rights and the bringing down of a nation’s moral code is unforgivable. We live in a world that calls for hard decisions, life and death becomes our leaders on a daily basis but without immovable barriers on what can be done to protect ourselves, then we should question on what we’re actually working to save, are people of a nation who doesn’t respect the rights and responsibilities of all humanity equal to screams and despair of a man in a darkened cell after having gone through hours of torture, terror and agony.