The Moral Low Ground

"In a now famous "torture memo," the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel told the White House that torture "may be justified" in certain circumstances on suspected al-Qaeda terrorists. In fact, it argues, torture may not really be torture unless it causes suffering "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." That would seem to give a green light to, say, applying a lighted cigarette to the skin. Is that not a form of torture?

In a second, infamous memo written in March, 2003, the administration told Mr. Rumsfeld that the President had the right to authorize torture and override international law under his powers as Commander-in-Chief. It further argued that torturers who followed presidential orders could get immunity from prosecution. Does this mean that the President of the United States is simply above the law?

In December, 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld himself authorized the use of dubious techniques such as hooding, stress positions, nudity and fear of dogs to break down prisoners at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Later, he personally approved the detention of "ghost prisoners" in Iraq, allowing U.S. officials to conceal them from the International Committee of the Red Cross in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions...

"We do not condone torture," George Bush said yesterday. "I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture."

Perhaps that is so, but it is pretty clear that his administration was flirting at the edges of legality, not to mention humanity, in its thirst to acquire intelligence from suspects who might warn them of another terrorist attack.

If he wants to lift the shadow of torture that lies over his administration, Mr. Bush will have to come clean about what exactly he and Mr. Rumsfeld did authorize and what precisely his policy on interrogations is now. The war on terror can only be won from the moral high ground, and by its actions at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, Washington is losing it."

The Globe and Mail