PEOPLE of my generation can’t really identify with the horrors of Hiroshima. Neither can they identify with the bombing of Dresden, Hanoi, or Britain. It didn’t occur in our era. We have read about it, seen it in movies, but it’s different when it happens live on your TV. Rather like Gaza now, or 9/11 in 2001.

My generation visited the twin towers. We also watched it fall. It’s real to us. We can imagine the fear of the people in that building when they realised that that plane was actually going to hit them. We saw the people jumping from the building rather than stay in literally boiling heat caused by the petrol fire. We saw it drop. Thousands were crushed in front of our eyes on live TV.

Some of us actually knew people who perished there because Jamaicans were killed there. A friend of mine lost his fiancée. Her body has never been found. This was not the first time that a fire in New York City killed in volumes and resulted in suicide jumps. There was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911. But that event was caused by negligence; 9/11 was caused and carried out by men.

What would our generation do to prevent this ever happening again? What would we justify? Would it include torture? The American Government’s enhanced interrogation techniques, ie torture, was used in Guantanamo Bay to prevent other 9/11 attacks. What is your feeling about this? What is mine?

Well, let me start by saying that I am against torture on many levels. Firstly, I don’t think it’s effective. When I was being trained in counterterrorism, surviving torture was one of the courses. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. It began with tying your ankles to your wrists behind you and leaving you laying flat on your stomach. This may not sound that bad, but it causes a little something called positional asphyxia. In straight English, it suffocates. If your stomach isn’t dead flat it’s much worse. Mine wasn’t. It still isn’t. I was ready at that point to tell them anything just to be allowed to breathe freely. Then came water boarding, electrical shocks, and blows to the mid section. Well, they had me from the hog-tie.

My point is, I would have told them anything for it to stop. It doesn’t mean that the information was accurate. I would have confessed to anything as well, sign any confession. Any and all things to stop being tortured. That being said, the torture conducted at Guantanamo Bay likely stopped other 9/11s from occurring, stopped more people from dying, burning to death, being crushed.

So was it right? Did the end justify the means? Would you, put in the same position as the American interrogators, have committed the same atrocities? Well, to me it depends on the hat I am wearing. I am law enforcement, the law says it’s not legal, so I won’t do it. As a martial artist it goes against every principle of my training and the tenets of my art. As a human, I just don’t have it in me. As a father and grandfather I would literally do anything to protect my family — I will do what is necessary!

So the question is, were the Americans morally right to torture terrorists to prevent future attacks of the scale, brutality and cruelty of 9/11? The answer eludes me. As a historian I can justify the use of the Atomic bomb because I know it saved millions of lives that would have been lost in a land invasion of the Empire of Japan. Most disagree, most are emotional rather than pragmatic.

I am a pragmatist, I look at facts. If I were a soldier stationed in Guantanamo Bay I could not participate in torture. I don’t have what is required in me to do it so other people would have to step up where I faltered. I don’t think this would be fair, but I simply couldn’t do it.

We judge others harshly because we are not wearing their clothes. We stand in judgement of Israel’s use of bombs and drones in Gaza without really even considering the attacks of October 7. We can do this because we are not the ones responsible for protecting thousands of innocent lives — the men who make the decision to drop bombs or allow torture are. They are doing what is necessary to protect their country.

What are you willing to do to protect yours? Or better yet, what are you willing to do to protect your family? Would you do what they did to protect your family but not mine?

The essence of my argument is that there are people who are forced to make decisions in respect of the greater good; to manufacture or drop bombs. It is because of them we are not waking up as part of the Third Reich, or maybe singing the Russian national anthem twice daily. Let us consider their burden before we condemn their actions.

Feedback: drjasonamcķay@gmail.còm