Good evening everybody. The first thing I would like to do is thank the *Cotch* foundation *Cotch* University and the Istanbul metropolitan municipality for making this event and this venue available to us today. I think it's a great honour to be here.
So, this house would encourage the state to tell deliberate untruths during times of war. What do we mean by this?
Firstly, let's deal with war. Simply: we mean real wars, wars between states not wars Americans call against concepts.
The second thing we'd like to talk about is the kind of untruths we'd like the state to tell. We think that it is always wrong for the state to tell untruths for simple political advantage but what we do think is right and what we do advocate on this side of the house, this afternoon, is that the state should tell untruths in the furtherance of the aims of it's war.
We think that that is necessary. We think that is important and we think that it restricts the state too heavily if it is not able to do that.
And that's what we're going to propose today.
The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to look at how truth just isn't an ultimate value, how we shouldn't set it above the various other values that we find conflicting when states enter into war.
And then, after I've done that, I'm going to look at the fundamental dishonesty of war. How we cannot *really* make a war without truth.
???, I'm going to look on ??? including looking at how the truth just sometimes doesn't work. So, let's start off. I'd like to talk about how truth just isn't an ultimate value. What we say is: if you do not -- as a state -- tell lies during war time, if you do not go out and propagate material that is false, then you place the value of truth over a series of other values. You place the value of truth over the value of the lives of your own citizens. You place the value of truth over the value of terminating a- an unpleasant war early. And you place the value of truth over the other rights that you have had to violate during that war. We say that the state cannot -- no, thank you -- prioritize -- uh -- the truth over the individual lives it is putting at risk each time it goes and engages in war. And we say that given that the existence of the state itself is compromised, it is justified for the state to tell untruths. Go.
- What are the consequences when that truth comes out?
The consequences when the truth come out- the consequences can happen after the war. They do happen after the war. That's why they don't find out as historians what happened during wars for several hundred years, sometimes after the war happened. States have been able to keep- keep truths hidden before we think they'll be able to do it in the future. And so, what I just said: that we'll be able to prioritize- that states should not be able to prioritize truth over the values of the individual lives it's putting at risk and over the existence- existence of the state. We don't think the state has the right to prioritize a mythical question of truth over- and a broad moralistic quest over the values of the individual lives of citizens. What we say is that during war the state routinely violates the rights of citizens. We have noted that states throughout war during history have interned their citizens. They have interned their citizens in order that they may prosecute the war more effectively. We think that interning citizens takes away a far more fundamental right than simply not telling the truth. And we think that it is right for the state to do that. Moreover, I'd like to talk just about how you can't have an objective value of truth anyway. We say there's no value in just putting out the truth because it's the truth. There's value in putting out the truth in a democracy. There's value in putting out the truth then because by having the truth being put out in a democracy, the democratic process is facilitated. We can't have a democracy if the state is always telling lies. But, we note something about states during wartime. We note that states have almost always decided that the prosecution and preservation of a democratic structure is more important than preserving everything necessary for the functioning of that democracy during wartime. That's why in Britain during the Second World War, there was a national government and no elections. That's why Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the United States managed to get elected four times, breaking previous precedent, because he thought it was necessary for preserving the United States through the Second World War. -- No, thank you. -- And that is what we see: that the value of truth which is just one necessary component to produce democracy, we think should be subsumed to the state and the states aim in preserving the democratic structure when it is fighting that war in order to preserve itself. Moreover, we'd like to say that the state doesn't even tell the truth sometimes in peacetime. Let's look at the case of witness protection. When you look at witness protection you see that state deliberately lies in order to protect witness's identity in order that their testimony isn't interfered with. In order that the higher value that the state places on justice -- the higher value that the state places on making sure that the state can get the prosecutions that it needs to make -- the state doesn't tell the truth in order to preserve that higher value. We say the lives of the citizens and we say that the existence of a democratic state is higher than the truth and it's just an extension of what the state already does in peacetime.
So, let me move on, and let me talk about how war is fundamentally dishonest. What we say is on a tactical level, war is always dishonest. You hide troop movements. You hide truth movements because if you don't hide troop movements, your troops get bombed and exterminated. And it's not particularly fair to those troops if you have to turn round and tell them "oh, I'm sorry, we had to tell the truth about where you were. Have a good time in the afterlife, please." And so, uh -- and moreover, you do things like you send over decoy missiles. You send over decoy missile so they can't all be shot down. Those, again, all they're doing is they're changing the conception of the world that people have. The conception of the world that citizens have. The conception of the world that the other side has to reflect one that is not the real conception of the world. That's why you refuse information because in order to have the conception of the world that you want so that everybody -- er -- conception of the world in which you will win the war -- it may not be the reality, but it is what you do in order that you win the war. Given that it is grossly unfair if you then have to just let the troops die or just let civilians die because you told the truth. What we say is that you aren't placed in a position of fundamental dishonesty anyway in war. If you're placed in a position of fundamental dishonesty on the tactical level, if you're placed in a position of fundamental dishonesty, perhaps, on the strategic level when you're talking about the capabilities of your weapons systems. About the capabilities that you troops and the capabilities that your command structures, -- we say -- when you're placed in that level of fundamental dishonesty, there is no real point in divorcing military matters from peaceful matters. The state is being dishonest anyway. The state has to be dishonest anyway in order to prosecute the war. And we think that this is good. An furthermore we think in this context that the prospect of being actually able to avoid telling untruths and just hiding truth just doesn't work. We don't think that you can get around saying "no comment" all the time during war.
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We don't think that works. We think that "no comment" is a charged phrase into which people read answers depending on the question. People are going to read answers into what you have said; you are going to be leading them one way or the other. Given that, we believe that you ought to lie. So we have told you that truth is not an ultimate value; that it should be subjected to values of individual levity and the existence of a democratic state; and that untruth is necessary; and because of those two things, I beg to propose.
