A Must Read Scathing Criticism of Ignatieff

An absolute must read on Michael Ignatieff.

Who is the author you ask. Well you will find that out at the end of the post.

"It is not very often that one gets to witness a "leadership frontrunner" immolate his own candidacy so blithely, so recklessly, but if you click here and you peer inside, you will see the corpse of Michael Ignatieff’s vaulting ambition. He is done – and if he isn’t, he should be.

Now, it is true that I objected to the learned professor before reading this essay, posted over the weekend on Pierre Bourque’s site. I objected to the manner in which his supporters trampled on democracy in a Toronto riding – literally locking out opponents. I objected to his support of George W. Bush’s illegal war in Iraq. I objected to the fact that he mocked Canada (Link dead) during the three decades he was abroad, and that he likened Israeli policy to the fascism of apartheid. I objected to what I perceived to be breathtaking arrogance – calling Canada a "herbivorian boy scout" one day, then jetting up here to run it the next.

And then came this essay. Below I have culled a representative sampling of some the things Ignatieff says about torture in his just-published tour de force. His Kool Aid drinkers – and he has many already, rest assured – will bombard me with emails, braying and screeching that I quoted him out of context. But the fact is that they are his words. And the fact is that, in politics, voters and reporters are not patrician Harvard students, willing to keep quiet until the very end of the great man’s hour-long treatise, or until the end of a 10,000 word essay in the New York Times Magazine. They can be counted upon to object right away to the objectionable. Up here in the frosty herbivorian Boy Scout camp, all that it takes is a few sentences, usually, to permit a glimpse into what passes for a soul. We have that skill, boy scouts that we are.

That said, here’s Michael Ignatieff on torture. If you don’t read them now, you’ll be reading them enough during the next election campaign.

"…torture is not served by collapsing the distinction between coercive interrogation and torture. Both may be repugnant, but repugnance does not make them into the same thing."

"…necessity may require the commission of bad acts…"

"An outright ban on torture and coercive interrogation leave a conscientious security officer with little choice but to disobey the ban."

"…it must be the case that other acts of torture occur because interrogators believe, in good faith, that torture is the only way to extract information in a timely fashion…"

"The argument that torture and coercion do not work is contradicted by the dire frequency with which both practices occur."

And, finally, the epitaph:

"I am willing to get my hands dirty."

"I am willing to get my hands dirty." That much, it seems, is true."

Wow. There is a lot of info there to digest including the "herbivorian boy scout" comment which I have not heard of until reading this.

If you were thinking that the author of this is not big fan of Michael Ignatieff you would be wrong because today he is in fact a big booster of Ignatieff, but back on March 27, 2006 when this first appeared on his blog, it was obvious that the author Warren Kinsella was not the fan that he is today.

Related: More from Warren and here.