When Is Torture Not Torture?

Someone is going to have to explain this to me.

Everybody knows of the disgusting events at Abu Ghraib prison by now, where American "service" people subjected Iraqi prisoners to all kinds of humiliations. At least one Iraqi prisoner has died in U.S. custody. That's not to mention all the prisoners being held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without being charged or tried, or these rumors (so far they're just that) about secret CIA prisons in Europe where our spy apparatus, in our name, can allegedly do whatever they want to prisoners without any oversight, by the Red Cross or anyone else. (I have my quarrels with the International Red Cross because of their treatment of Israel, but that doesn't alter the fact that they have a job to do and the U.S. apparently isn't letting them do it.)

With all that going on, Senator John McCain has amended some appropriations bills to disallow any mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. Sounds reasonable enough, yes? Not to George W. or to Dick Cheney. They want an exemption from any such mistreatment injunction for the CIA.


Let me repeat - George W. and Dick Cheney want permission for the Central Intelligence Agency to do whatever they want to prisoners in their custody.

Why? Because, according to our President:

Any activity we conduct is within the law. We do not torture.

Notice how subtle? Does he mean that the United States always obeys international law? Or does he mean that when the United States does something, it's legal by definition? The first is an obvious lie, the second a totally specious argument. It's like what former Attorney General Ed Meese said about suspects in criminal cases. Clever, isn't it?

Now, the United States currently faces a destructive, highly motivated and fanatical enemy, and to defeat it we may have to do distasteful things. Israel has had to face that reality for quite a while, and Amnesty International has made quite a stink about it over the last few years. To learn about terrorist activities, Israeli police sometimes use something called "mild coercion," if memory serves. This involves picking up prisoners and shaking them.

If that's what the President has in mind, let me remind him that there's a big difference between that and this:


Benshlomo says, If it looks like a terrorist, walks like a terrorist, talks like a terrorist and goes steady with terrorists, I guess we'd better cut it to ribbons first and ask questions later.