Torture for revenge makes us no better than our enemies

CIA torture report highlights underlying sadistic revenge inflicted in the process of interrogations

Columnist Coline Covington

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, outspoken proponent of torture techniques, has vilified the Senate report into the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” and reiterated an emotional justification for the agency’s behaviour.

Cheney argues that it is the context that matters. In response to the brutal treatment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, Cheney said, “He is in our possession, we know he’s the architect [of 9/11], what are we supposed to do? Kiss him on both cheeks?”

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is a Jungian analyst in private practice in London. She is former Chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council and a Training Analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology, of the British Association of Psychotherapists, and of the London Centre for Psychotherapy. She is co-editor with Barbara Wharton of Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, published by Routledge in 2003 and co-editor with Paul Williams, Jean Arundale and Jean Knox of Terrorism and War: Unconscious Dynamics of Political Violence, published by Karnac in 2002.