'The US Does Not Torture' But What We Do 'Do' We Won't Talk About

[babylonsister]

The US Does Not Torture' But What We Do 'Do' We Won't Talk About

On Torture, 2 Messages and a High Political Cost
by Scott Shane

WASHINGTON - Six years after the Bush administration embraced harsh physical tactics for interrogating terrorism suspects, and two years after it reportedly dropped the most extreme of those techniques, the taint of torture clings to American counterterrorism efforts.

The administration has a standard answer to queries about its interrogation practices: 1) We do not torture, and 2) we will not say what we do, for fear of tipping off future prisoners. In effect, officials want Al Qaeda to believe that the United States does torture, while convincing the rest of the world that it does not.

But that contradictory catechism is not holding up well under the battering that American interrogation policies have received from human rights organizations, European allies and increasingly skeptical members of Congress.

The administration does not acknowledge scaling back the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret detention program, perhaps to avoid implying that earlier methods were immoral or illegal. President Bush has repeatedly defended what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation methods, saying they have produced invaluable information on Al Qaeda. But the administration’s strategy has exacted an extraordinary political cost.

The nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general, once expected to sail through the Senate, has run into trouble as a result of his equivocation about waterboarding, or simulated drowning. Mr. Mukasey has refused to characterize the technique as torture, which would put him at odds with secret Justice Department legal opinions and could put intelligence officers in legal jeopardy.

At a House hearing last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that the United States had mishandled the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was seized in New York in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism and shipped to Syria, where he was imprisoned and severely beaten.

But Ms. Rice refused to acknowledge the torture or to apologize to Mr. Arar, perhaps to avoid exposing to attack the policy of extraordinary rendition, in which the United States delivers suspects to other countries, including some that routinely use torture.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/washington/30torture.html?adxnnl=1&ref=us&adxnnlx=1193756480-zjqVh2I7DVi8Mc9igXx1tg

[jojo54]

1. @#&*$&@#, &*+%@#* %#+%@, $#@*+%$

I did NOT just curse!!!! You heard me wrong.

[GodlessBiker]

2. It's "do do" all right.

[Ezlivin]

3. Soldiers or fighters don't follow other nation's politics

When I served we talked about being captured by the Soviets. Did they torture? We sure as hell didn't know. But whatever they did we wouldn't like it; that was enough to fear.

I seriously doubt that any of the suicide bombers in the ME care one way or another what our official "stance" on torture is. And the poor innocents that inevitably get caught in our dragnets are already suffering what amounts to torture to them.

Face it: The US no longer has a moral leg to stand upon.