Farooq Siddique: Moral compass points the way

Last week, I talked about the techniques used by the CIA to obtain information from alleged terrorists.

My view was that some of those techniques, for what I thought obvious reasons, were unacceptable, and not part of the values we hold dear in the West; values which are worth fighting for.

But the barrage of comments my column received on this website, all of them critical, was depressing.

The comments collectively, amounted to a robust support of the CIA techniques; "Get the Taliban to publish their techniques" said one. "We must do what ever it takes" said another, regardless of what "whatever it takes" would mean.

One American contributor commented "the author refers to an 'alleged al-Qaeda prisoner' who was water boarded 183 times. There is nothing 'alleged' about Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

This man was …the principal al-Qaeda authority behind the 9/11 attacks".

But that is the point my friend; none of these people have been charged, or tried or even told of why they are being held.

They have just been repeatedly tortured or subject to "harsh interrogations". After being water boarded 183 times, you'll "sing like a canary" for sure, heck you'd even win the X-Factor final if your captors asked you to!

There were the usual none-too-bright comments barely veiling the rabid anti-religionist views; one idea was to carpet bomb Afghanistan for example, but one of the more poignant comments was "I wouldn't wish any of these practices to be visited on anyone for any reason...until the London bombings".

And herein lies the danger. With so much senseless killing on both sides – at the weekend for example, NATO bombed a hijacked oil tanker in Afghanistan, burning alive 90 civilians – the emotion of revenge is powerful, enticing.

We are living in the realm of "kill them before they kill us"; the emotion of fear and hate is overwhelming. It applies to people on both sides of the divide. When "revenge" is the pervading ideology, our moral compass is threatened with perversion.

Just as I defy and condemn Muslims who carry out atrocities against civilians, who are equally blinded by the emotion of revenge and hate, so I will also stand and condemn those wanting to rule by the law of the jungle.

If "they" (the other) hates the West for "hypocrisy", our "double standards", why in the West can we not stand by our true values, and show them to be true; the values of justice, of freedom, of equality under the law for all.

Why do we become the monster that the "other" so fears and so hates?

We say "we will not let the terrorists win", they "will not change our way of life", but when we say "let's kill them all", simply because we can, have we not already lost?

Islam did not give birth to the evil carried out by some Muslims. As Hussein Shobokshi of a leading Arabic daily says: "This is a miserable scene that has no connection whatsoever to the glorious history of Islam, which was able to produce scientific breakthroughs and export these advances to the wider world. The Muslim world was one that conducted dialogue and coexisted with others. Its figures, such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, Averroes, Avicenna, al-Kindi, and Alhazen, towered over their contemporaries. Their ideas have served humanity and formed the basis of knowledge in areas such as medicine, astronomy, mathematics, algebra, geometry, architecture, and sociology."

The West today is no different. Let us, together, stand by those values, and show them to be true.