Terrorism and Torture

Norm Geras makes a striking point:

Torture is an indefensible practice; but so is the random murder of innocents. The absence of pleas for understanding in the former case, set beside the rich presence of pleas for understanding in the latter case, tells either of a wildly imbalanced distribution of sociological curiosity with respect to the two or of a much greater predisposition on the British liberal-left to condone terrorism than to excuse torture.

It seems to me that both cross a profound moral line; and the most depressing fact of our time is that the right seems unable to refute torture without qualifications and the left seems unable to refute terrorism without qualifications. The key to civilization's endurance, it seems to me, is a refusal to tolerate either.