From BBC Online

The UN has formally rejected a US invitation to visit the Guantanamo prison camp, saying it cannot accept the restrictions imposed by Washington.

UN human rights experts said the US had refused to grant them the right to speak to detainees in private. UN senior official Manfred Nowak said private interviews were a “totally non-negotiable pre-condition” for conducting the visit.

Some 500 terror suspects are being held at the US military camp.

Mr Nowak, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, told the BBC his team would accept nothing less than unfettered access.

From BBC Online

Iceland and Sweden are investigating allegations that planes flown by the CIA used their airports during secret transfers of terror suspects.

The Icelandic government says it has asked the US for an explanation and is still awaiting a satisfactory answer.

Mr Ren’ van der Linden, president of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, has called for help from the European Commission in the investigation of CIA prison allegations.

From EurActiv: “I would request all governments, along with the European Commission, to co-operate fully. This issue goes to the very heart of the Council of Europe’s human rights mandate.”

Meanwhile, it looks like Britain’s role in this form of human trafficing is set to increase.

By Ian Bruce in The Herald

Britain is poised to become the main European refuelling hub for secret CIA flights carrying terrorist suspects for interrogation in North Africa and the Middle East.

Despite protests by MPs and MSPs, the UK government has taken no action either to halt the clandestine flights or demand to know whether prisoners were on board the 390 known to have landed at Scottish and English airfields since 2001.

They are called “rendition” missions. This is the White House-sanctioned process of moving al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist prisoners to third countries where they can be interrogated beyond the reach of US and European human rights’ legislation. The countries to which captives have been taken for questioning by local security forces have been accused by the UN of employing torture to obtain information.

Officials in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Norway have opened criminal investigations into possible violations of national and international law on the issue. Italy has filed a formal extradition request naming 22 CIA agents allegedly involved in the kidnap of a radical Muslim cleric in 2003.

Ireland and Denmark have lodged protests over the pit-stop presence of CIA-operated aircraft on their territory en route for Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or “ghost” prisons elsewhere in the world. Denmark has even asked the CIA to avoid using its airspace when transporting prisoners.

A German intelligence source said: “Britain may soon be one of the few countries, if not the only one, still willing to accept rendition missions via its sovereign territory.”

The Herald has revealed Scottish RAF bases and civilian airports had played host to the 170 “rendition” missions en route to or returning from Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Jordan.

Glasgow and Prestwick airports handled 149 of the refuelling stops, including a number of overnight stays. RAF Leuchars, Edinburgh, Inverness and Wick were the other locations.

Professor Martin Scheinin, of the UN’s human rights commission, said: “When several states, by co-operating with each other, breach their obligations under international law simultaneously where torture might be involved, then all bear individual responsibility. I have submitted a list of detailed questions to the government of the UK over rendition flights.”

A source from Germany’s spy service said: “While most European governments initially turned a blind eye to rendition flights in the immediate aftermath of September 11, the embarrassment factor involved once the media realised that suspects were being abducted for torture at the hands of third parties means that these missions can no longer be carried out with impunity.

“Austria scrambled fighters to intercept an unauthorised CIA flight two years ago and our own government is increasingly hostile to US arrogance in assuming that Ramstein air base is US territory.”

Spain this week opened a judicial inquiry into claims that CIA flights used Majorca and the Canary Islands.

A CIA spokesman said the agency carried out rendition flights only via “countries which are political allies and whose intelligence services grant permission”.

Various reports on illegal CIA flight activity are indicating the possibility of a wide network indeed. This article abstracted below now suggests that the Canary Islands, Germany, Norway, and Portugal were all visited. This is of course in additon to the well documented cases in Italy, Sweeden and elsewhere.

“MADRID, Spain – Reports of alleged CIA use of Spain as a stopover point for transporting suspected Islamic terrorists spread Wednesday to the Canary Islands, where the regional government said it had asked Madrid to explain if airports there were also used for covert missions.

The Spanish archipelago off west Africa joins the Mediterranean island of Mallorca in the controversy.

The Canary Islands government said Wednesday that in May it had asked the central government to explain local newspaper reports that suspected CIA planes had made stopovers five times on the island of Tenerife between March 2004 and May 2005.

“But we never got an answer back, or just a vague answer that the government had no evidence. Now we want to ask again for those explanations,” Miguel Becerra, a spokesman for the Canary Islands government, said in a telephone interview.”

Further comment and links are available at the Washington Post Blog

By Elizabeth Nash in the Independent

Spain has launched a judicial inquiry into allegations that CIA aircraft may have secretly used a Spanish airport to transport terror suspects to clandestine interrogation camps, Jose Antonio Alonso, the Interior Minister, said.

If the allegations proved true, Mr Alonso warned, “we would be looking at extremely serious, absolutely intolerable acts that violate rules for treating prisoners in a democratic society, and would demand a government response that would affect bilateral relations”. The dispute deals a further blow to US-Spanish relations, already bruised by Spain’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq last year.

The full article can be read here

By Maria Jesus Prades at ABC News

MADRID, Spain Nov 14, 2005 ‘ European probes of the CIA’s alleged covert transfers of Islamic terror suspects have spread to Spain, where a court said Monday it has received a prosecutor’s report on allegations that the agency used a Spanish airport on the island of Mallorca.

The document stemmed from a four-month investigation prompted by reports from a Mallorca newspaper on the arrivals of suspicious aircraft.

The newspaper, Diario de Mallorca, said a CIA plane that took off from the Mediterranean island was involved in the alleged kidnapping of a Lebanese-born German national, who says he was transported to Afghanistan, questioned as an al-Qaida suspect and tortured.

Bartomeu Barcelo, the chief prosecutor for the Balearic Islands, which include Mallorca, submitted the investigative report to the National Court in July, court officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because court rules bar them from giving their names.

Diario de Mallorca also reported this month that Spanish police have identified three planes a Boeing 737 and two Gulfstream jets as having been used by the CIA at the airport in Mallorca’s capital, Palma, in its “extraordinary rendition” program.

The U.S. government has been criticized by human rights groups for practicing “extraordinary rendition” sending suspected terrorists to foreign countries, where they are detained, interrogated and subjected to possible ill-treatment.

The prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the report on Monday, as did police in Mallorca. The Spanish court officials said it was not clear if the National Court had begun to or agreed to undertake its own probe.

In a series of articles that began in March, Diario de Mallorca said more than a dozen CIA flights had used Palma airport. It said that in one case, a CIA plane involved in the alleged kidnapping of Khaled al-Masri in Macedonia early last year had taken off from Palma airport en route to the Balkan country.

Al-Masri says he was abducted, flown to Afghanistan and interrogated for suspected ties to al-Qaida.

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO in Gainsville

ROME ‘ Italian prosecutors have requested the extradition of 22 purported CIA operatives in the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in 2003, prosecutors said Friday. The request was sent to Italy’s Justice Ministry in Rome, which will decide whether to pass it on to the United States.

Justice Minister Roberto Castelli returned Friday from Washington, where he held talks with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on “cross-border investigations and extradition cases of mutual interest for the two countries,” a ministry statement said. It did not specify whether they took up the CIA case, which has strained relations between the two allies.

A U.S. Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the United States had not received a formal extradition request but that the subject had come up during the meeting between Castelli and Gonzales.

The purported CIA operatives were allegedly involved in the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, a cleric who was thought to belong to an Islamic terror group. He was allegedly abducted on a Milan street Feb. 17, 2003, before being flown to Egypt, where he was reportedly tortured.

Prosecutors claimed Nasr’s abduction violated Italian sovereignty and hindered Italian terrorism investigations. The Justice Ministry is not obligated to pursue a prosecutor’s extradition request. A judge in Milan has issued an arrest warrant for Nasr ‘ a step that could lead to Italy’s requesting his extradition from authorities in Egypt, Italian news agencies reported.

The extradition request threatens a new jolt to relations between Italy and the United States, which also were strained by the March killing of an Italian intelligence agent by U.S. troops in Baghdad. Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government denied months ago it had prior knowledge of the alleged kidnapping.

It summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain the operation, which was purportedly part of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program in which terrorism suspects are transferred to third countries, subjecting them to possible ill-treatment.

Excerpts from a speech by the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, in which he considers alternatives to current US and UK policy and the ” global war on terror”.

From DNA Opinion

What is the relevance of Gandhian values in the world today? The aspect of Gandhian values that tend to receive most attention, not surprisingly, is the practice of non-violence. The violence that is endemic in the contemporary world makes the commitment to non-violence particularly challenging and difficult, but it also makes that priority especially important and urgent.

However, in this context it is extremely important to appreciate that non-violence is promoted not only by rejecting and spurning violent courses of action, but also by trying to build societies in which violence would not be cultivated and nurtured. Gandhiji was concerned with the morality of personal behaviour, but not just with that, and we would undervalue the wide reach of his political thinking if we try to see non-violence simply as a code of behaviour.

Consider the problem of terrorism in the world today. In fighting terrorism, the Gandhian response cannot be seen as taking primarily the form of pleading with the would-be terrorists to desist from doing dastardly things. Gandhiji’s ideas about preventing violence went far beyond that, and involved social institutions and public priorities, as well as individual beliefs and commitments. Bearing this in mind, and pursuing the general theme of the relevance of Gandhian values outside India, I ask the question: Is there something that America and Britain in particular can profitably learn today from Gandhiji’s political analysis?

Some of the lessons of a Gandhian approach to violence and terrorism in the world are clear enough. Perhaps the simplest ‘ is the importance of education in cultivating peace rather than discord. The implications include the need to discourage, and if possible to eliminate altogether, schools in which hatred of other communities, or other groups of people in general, is encouraged and noursished. There is more to be done on this in India. But happily the country seems to have stepped back from what seemed at one stage to be a relentless departure from secular toleration and non-sectarian respect, which were so important to Gandhiji.

It might be thought that Gandhiji’s lessons are widely understood in Britain and America, and at one level they certainly are. For example, many centres of hateful preaching and teaching are being restrained, or closed in contemporary Britain. But the full force of Gandhiji’s understanding of this subject has not yet been seized in British public policy. One of the great messages of Gandhiji is that you cannot defeat nastiness, including violent nastiness, unless you yourself shun similar nastiness altogether. This has much immediate relevance today.

There are many holders of high American positions who approve of, and actively support, the proceodure of what is called ‘extraordinary rendition’. The point that emerges from Gandhiji’s arguments is not only that this is a thoroughly unethical practice, but also that this is no way of winning a war against terrorism and nastiness.

I cannot fail to have considerable misgivings about the official move in the United Kingdom towards extension of state-supported, faith-based schools. The move in Britain reflects, in fact, a more general ‘ and deeply problematic ‘ vision of Britain as ‘a federation of communities’, rather than a collectivity of human beings resident in Britain, with their diverse differences, of which religious and community-based distinctions constitute only one part.

Much has been written on the fact that India, with more Muslim people than almost every Muslim-majority country in the world, has produced extremely few home-grown terrorists acting in the name of Islam, and almost none linked with the Al Qaeda. There are many casual influences here. But some credit must also go to the nature of Indian democratic politics, and to the wide acceptance in India of the idea, championed by Mahatma Gandhi, that there are many identities other than religious ethnicity that are also relevant for a person’s self-understanding and for the relations between citizens of diverse background within the country.

The disastrous consequences of defining people by their religious ethnicity, and giving priority to the community-based perspective, which Gandhiji thought was receiving support from India’s British rulers, may well have come, alas, to haunt the country of the rulers themselves. At the Round-table Conference in 1931, Gandhiji did not get his way, and his dissenting opinions were only briefly recorded.

In a gentle complaint addressed to the British prime minister, Gandhiji said at the meeting, ‘in most of these reports you will find that there is a dissenting opinion, and in most of the cases that dissent unfortunately happens to belong to me.’ Those statements certainly did belong only to him, but the wisdom behind Gandhiji’s far-sighted refusal to see a nation as a federation of religions and communities belongs, I must assert, to the entire world.

It is fitting that Gandhiji’s dissenting views from the 1931 meetings are preserved in the records located exactly in London. I fear London has need for them now. One does not have to be an Indian chauvinist to make that claim. For Gandhiji and his ideas belonged to the world, not just to us in this country.

One view of a recent debate at Trinity College, Dublin from Clifford May, a somewhat neo-conservative character…

From The News Tribune

We had gathered at the venerable University Philosophical Society of Trinity College in Dublin to debate the resolution: “This house believes that George W. Bush is a danger to world stability.”

But those tasked with defending the resolution were disinclined even to discuss what they clearly considered gross understatement. Instead, Patrick Cockburn, a British journalist, began by angrily accusing the United States of embarking on an “old-fashioned imperial war” in Iraq and beyond. As for terrorism, that he dismissed as “something people believe in like they believe in witchcraft. What does it mean?”

Though he was unsure of terrorism’s definition, he harbored no doubts about who was responsible for it. President Bush, he said, “is not fighting terrorism, he is provoking it.” This brought vigorous applause from the students assembled in the stately hall.

Richard Downes, an Irish journalist, recited Humpty Dumpty. His point was that Iraq had been broken by Bush, whom he called a “maniacal egg killer.” This evoked gales of laughter. He called the U.S. military “astonishingly incompetent.”

Craig J. Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan, asserted that the crimes committed by that country’s rulers are “subsidized by the government of George W. Bush.” Bush has done this, he said, for the benefit of Enron. The goal of Americans, he instructed the students, is to “get at the oil and gas so they can guzzle it.”

He added: “George Bush talks directly to God. He is the most dangerous religiously inspired fanatic in the world.” This, too, brought an enthusiastic ovation.

Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East bureau chief, began by charging that in Iraq there have been “more casualties of civilians by Americans than by insurgents.” He announced: “George Bush is a threat to world peace on so many levels we can’t begin to discuss it.”

So he didn’t try. Instead, he turned to the topic that really fires him up: Israel. Yasser Arafat, he said, had been correct to reject the offer of Palestinian statehood made at Camp David in 2000 because it was “a pro-Zionist type of approach.” In other words, it would have allowed the Jewish state to survive. He clearly found that a distasteful prospect.

I was not surprised. At dinner before the debate, he’d noted that he had heard a BBC host cut off a caller who wanted to discuss Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map.” The caller didn’t see what was so terrible about this idea and didn’t understand why British Prime Minister Tony Blair had felt obliged to denounce it. Llewellyn lamented that there now seems to be a taboo against expressing such opinions.

In addition to these invited speakers, a number of students took the lectern. Among them was Chris, an American, who pleaded that “the current regime in America is not my America. Bush doesn’t represent my America. … We’ve lost our way.” On a personal note, he confessed that he had watched Fox News. “I know I shouldn’t be doing that,” he said.

On the other side of this debate, there were just two: myself and Charlie Wolf, an American-born, London-based radio-talk-show host. Wolf was so flabbergasted by the attacks on America and Israel that he threw away his notes on global stability and attempted to improvise rebuttals.

As for me, I did address the resolution. I had given it some thought and I hate it when my thoughts – rare as they are – go to waste. I then went on to challenge a little of what I had been hearing.

I criticized Cockburn and others in the media for having failed to report extensively on Saddam Hussein’s mass murders and routine use of rape, torture and ethnic cleansing. Cockburn got so angry that he approached the podium and for a few moments it appeared he might take a swing at me.

I told Llewellyn – politely, but to his face – that he was an anti-Semite. That term, I explained, used to mean those who wanted a Europe with no Jewish population; today, it means those who want a world with no Jewish state.

The moderator of the debate, Charlie Bird, an Irish TV reporter, made no effort to disguise his sympathies – they were not with anyone who would defend Bush. But he effusively praised the apologetic American student – perhaps he thought that would help bridge geographic and political divides.

Finally, Bird noted that next week the Society would debate whether militant Islamism is a legitimate form of resistance to American hegemony. While I’ll be sorry to miss that event, I have a hunch how it will turn out.

Ken Sanders considers the ease with which the Bush adminstration misleads the American public.

The full article is posted at OpEdNews

“Take, for instance, the Bush administration’s ongoing insistence that the U.S. does not engage in torture. As recently as November 7, 2005, despite the administration’s vehement and open opposition to a Senate bill that would outlaw torture, Bush nonetheless declared (straight-faced and with all the appearances of sincerity), ‘We do not torture.’ Apparently, the administration believes that the word of our ‘straight-shooting’ President is enough for most Americans.

Sadly, they’re right. Most Americans are far more willing to believe what the Bush administration says than what it does. If that were not the case, the nation would collectively shout, ‘LIARS!,’ descend upon Washington, and throw the bastards out of office. Instead, most of us, like the gullible dolts we are, take the administration at its word and blithely ignore the facts staring us in the face….”

From Editor and Publisher (Nov 8th)

NEW YORK At today’s White House press briefing, Scott McClellan was hit with a number of questions about the “ethics classes” the president’s staffers are now attending. But much of the briefing featured efforts by Helen Thomas, at the start, and then other reporters to get McClellan to explain the apparent contradiction between his claims that the U.S. does not torture anyone and Vice President Cheney’s request for an exemption in this matter.

Here are the exchanges from the transcript:

Q I’d like you to clear up, once and for all, the ambiguity about torture. Can we get a straight answer? The President says we don’t do torture, but Cheney —

MR. McCLELLAN: That’s about as straight as it can be.

Q Yes, but Cheney has gone to the Senate and asked for an exemption on —

MR. McCLELLAN: No, he has not. Are you claiming he’s asked for an exemption on torture? No, that’s —

Q He did not ask for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: — that is inaccurate.

Q Are you denying everything that came from the Hill, in terms of torture?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you’re mischaracterizing things. And I’m not going to get into discussions we have —

Q Can you give me a straight answer for once?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me give it to you, just like the President has. We do not torture. He does not condone torture and he would never —

Q I’m asking about exemptions.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me respond. And he would never authorize the use of torture. We have an obligation to do all that we can to protect the American people. We are engaged —

Q That’s not the answer I’m asking for —

MR. McCLELLAN: It is an answer — because the American people want to know that we are doing all within our power to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. There are people in this world who want to spread a hateful ideology that is based on killing innocent men, women and children. We saw what they can do on September 11th —

Q He didn’t ask for an exemption —

MR. McCLELLAN: — and we are going to —

Q — answer that one question. I’m asking, is the administration asking for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: I am answering your question. The President has made it very clear that we are going to do —

Q You’re not answering — yes or no?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you don’t want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I’m going to tell them the facts.

Q — the American people every day. I’m asking you, yes or no, did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: And let me respond. You’ve had your opportunity to ask the question. Now I’m going to respond to it.

Q If you could answer in a straight way.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I’m going to answer it, just like the President — I just did, and the President has answered it numerous times.

Q — yes or no —

MR. McCLELLAN: Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic radicals who are intent on spreading a hateful ideology, and intent on killing innocent men, women and children.

Q Did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people.

Q Is that the answer?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear. The President directed everybody within this government that we do not engage in torture. We will not torture. He made that very clear.

Q Are you denying we asked for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, we will continue to work with the Congress on the issue that you brought up. The way you characterize it, that we’re asking for exemption from torture, is just flat-out false, because there are laws that are on the books that prohibit the use of torture. And we adhere to those laws.

Q We did ask for an exemption; is that right? I mean, be simple — this is a very simple question.

MR. McCLELLAN: I just answered your question. The President answered it last week.

Q What are we asking for?

Q Would you characterize what we’re asking for?

MR. McCLELLAN: We’re asking to do what is necessary to protect the American people in a way that is consistent with our laws and our treaty obligations. And that’s what we —

Q Why does the CIA need an exemption from the military?

MR. McCLELLAN: David, let’s talk about people that you’re talking about who have been brought to justice and captured. You’re talking about people like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad; people like Abu Zubaydah.

Q I’m asking you —

MR. McCLELLAN: No, this is facts about what you’re talking about.

Q Why does the CIA need an exemption from rules that would govern the conduct of our military in interrogation practices?

MR. McCLELLAN: There are already laws and rules that are on the books, and we follow those laws and rules. What we need to make sure is that we are able to carry out the war on terrorism as effectively as possible, not only —

Q What does that mean —

MR. McCLELLAN: What I’m telling you right now — not only to protect Americans from an attack, but to prevent an attack from happening in the first place. And, you bet, when we capture terrorist leaders, we are going to seek to find out information that will protect — that prevent attacks from happening in the first place. But we have an obligation to do so. Our military knows this; all people within the United States government know this. We have an obligation to do so in a way that is consistent with our laws and values.

Now, the people that you are bringing up — you’re talking about in the context, and I think it’s important for the American people to know, are people like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh — these are — these are dangerous killers.

Q So they’re all killers —

Q Did you ask for an exemption on torture? That’s a simple question, yes or no.

MR. McCLELLAN: No. And we have not. That’s what I told you at the beginning.

Q You want to reserve the ability to use tougher tactics with those individuals who you mentioned.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, obviously, you have a different view from the American people. I think the American people understand the importance of doing everything within our power and within our laws to protect the American people.

Q Scott, are you saying that Cheney did not ask —

Q What is it that you want the — what is it that you want the CIA to be able to do that the U.S. Armed Forces are not allowed to do?

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not going to get into talking about national security matters, Bill. I don’t do that, because this involves —

Q This would be the exemption, in other words.

MR. McCLELLAN: This involves information that relates to doing all we can to protect the American people. And if you have a different view — obviously, some of you on this room — in this room have a different view, some of you on the front row have a different view.

Q We simply are asking a question.

Q What is the Vice President — what is the Vice President asking for?

MR. McCLELLAN: It’s spelled out in our statement of administration policy in terms of what our views are. That’s very public information. In terms of our discussions with members of Congress —

Q — no, it’s not —

MR. McCLELLAN: In terms of our members — like I said, there are already laws on the books that we have to adhere to and abide by, and we do. And we believe that those laws and those obligations address these issues.

Q So then why is the Vice President continuing to lobby on this issue? If you’re very happy with the laws on the books, what needs change?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you asked me — you want to ask questions of the Vice President’s office, feel free to do that. We’ve made our position very clear, and it’s spelled out on our website for everybody to see.

Q We don’t need a website, we need you from the podium.

MR. McCLELLAN: And what I just told you is what our view is.

Q But Scott, do you see the contradiction —

MR. McCLELLAN: Jessica, go ahead.

From The Crimson

A dramatist could not have hoped to conjure a better contrast. On one hand, Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, publicly champions a categorical ban on the torture of prisoners. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney, who did not serve in Vietnam, makes closed-door appeals to senators for an exception clause to torture in circumstances of eminent danger.

In one of the best-supported congressional revolts in President George W Bush’s five years in office, the Senate voted 90-9 last month in favor of McCain’s ban. But the bill’s fate still depends on negotiations in the Conference Committee of the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. And not only is the House more loyal to the administration, but three of the nine senators who voted against the measure are on the Conference Committee.

However, McCain’s absolute ban on torture ought to be adopted by the House and signed by the president if the Congress and administration are to maintain any semblance of an ethical position on this matter.

According to the November 2005 New Yorker, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) can be implicated in four deaths of detainees in United States’ detention facilities abroad’among them Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, and Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan. Yet, due to Justice Department memos that argued that Iraqi insurgents were not protected by international law and that lesser forms of torture were legal, these CIA officers will not be facing charges. McCain’s ban would close such loopholes, returning the U.S. to the ethical position it had taken for five decades. According to human rights groups, the bill would give protection to some ten thousand foreign suspects.

Supporters of torture often point to the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario’in which torturing one suspect could potentially save thousands of lives’as a justifiable reason to consider torture as a last resort. But to think primarily in terms of such TV scenarios is unrealistic given that we never have all the important pieces of information to make such judgments. In the experience of Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq during Desert Storm, torture is ‘simply not a good way to get information.’ According to Herrington, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no ‘stress methods’ at all. And even if the remaining person is the correct suspect, he will ‘just tell you anything to get you to stop.’

In 1999, the Supreme Court of Israel’arguably the most experienced democratic court in dealing with such ‘imminent danger’ scenarios’outlawed any use of torture. Were the U.S. to make such a decision, it would reflect preexisting domestic laws, such as the Army Field Manual and bring the country in accordance with international law, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Moreover, the use of torture undermines the morale of U.S. troops due to the prospect of reciprocation of such methods by their enemies. It is also likely to outrage any international actor, who cannot understand why the U.S. refuses to treat others by the same standards of humane treatment required at home by the U.S. Constitution.

No better are U.S. practices of ‘extraordinary rendition,’ the outsourcing of torture practices to Syria, Morocco, Jordan and Egypt’all of which have been cited for human-rights violations by the State Department. A corollary to this practice is CIA operated secret prisons in Thailand and Eastern Europe, as recently reported by Dana Priest in The Washington Post. Such forays into ethically murky territory’to say the least’do no small harm to U.S. credibility abroad.

On Jan. 27, President Bush assured us that ‘torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.’ Yesterday in Panama, he repeated those categorical words, yet he continues to support the Vice President in his opposition to 90 senators, Colin Powell, the advice of the 9/11 Commission Report, domestic law, and international law. It is such inconsistencies that have led more than half of Americans to doubt Bush’s integrity for the first time ever according to an ABC News and Washington Post poll. Rarely does a case divide itself on such clear moral lines. A moral president would not disagree.