CBC's As It Happens had a terrific interview Wednesday night with Michael Ignatieff, the Carr Professor of Human Rights Practice and director of the Carr Centre of Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.

(It's in part three of the Nov. 9 show).

Some quotes:

"I don't think torture is a debatable issue. There are a few basics that we can't tamper with, and torture is one of them. ... That one-on-one infliction of physical pain is something liberal democracies should not do, because liberal democracy is an order of government that says there ought to be strict limits on what governments can do to human beings, the most basic of which is not to inflict pain." ...

"There are lawful forms of interrogation that do not involve stress, duress, cruel and unusual, cruel and degrading or torture. ...

... It's two problems: It's one, the feeling that they felt they needed intelligence product so urgently that they could just do what they wanted, and two, they didn't care what the international rules said. So two mistakes were made, both equally wrong. ...

We need to remember some basics about what a liberal democracy is ... A liberal democracy is also an order of government which insists on public disclosure, so the core right in a liberal democracy is habeas corpus, and that has a direct relationship to torture ...

We need to remember what we're defending here, and what we're defending here is a place where government does not have unlimited power over people and where government is obligated to justify its actions publicly. ... that's what we're fighting for and we mustn't shred them in the process of defending ourselves. ...

When democracies defend themselves, they do have to fight with one hand behind their back. That's what we are. ...

Torture is one of the things which creates terrorists. ...

I am appalledt hat Canada has even been within 100 yards of rendition in the Maher Arar case ... and I am appalled that we appear to have secret detention centres in the war on terror. ... This is a disaster for the United States. ...

We have to get this back under control or we may lose the war on terror ... We lose it because we lose the identity we are defending, and we make more enemies that we can neutralize.