ABSTRACT
This chapter takes special care in defining both terrorism and torture to enable a moral appraisal of their use, and it draws examples from the contemporary debate over torturing non-state, al-Qaeda-style terrorism suspects, as well as more historical examples such as the French experience in Algeria during the 1950s. Numerous governments, including the US government, define terrorism this way evidence of the widespread presumption that states are the only bodies with the legitimate authority to sanction political violence. For Walzer, the supreme emergency exception can only justify terrorism if 'the oppression to which the terrorist claimed to be responding was genocidal in character'. One adverse consequence of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects is that the practice soon became a routine part of other interrogations in other contexts, most notably in the Iraq War.
