God Says USA Can Torture

According to a poll by Angus Reid Consultants, 57% of Americans think the CIA should abide by the Geneva Conventions. That's a clear majority, which on the surface looks pretty good, right?

But a whopping 38% still think the CIA should be "able to use more forceful interrogation techniques than the Geneva Convention standards". Throw in the 2% of prevaricators and you have two in every five US adults thinking the CIA need not abide by the Geneva Conventions.

Here's my problem with that: how do these people feel about other nations applying the same standards? Should the KGB abide by the Geneva Conventions? Should the Chinese? Iranians? Yeah, right...

So what makes the USA so damn special? The same old story, isn't it? "God is on our side!"

Is that true? Is the USA really so special? US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales seems to think so. He insists the USA acted lawfully when it sent Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured, simply because his name appeared on a US government terrorist list. Gonzales says Mr Arar's removal was a deportation, and not a "rendition", but even if it were a rendition, that would be OK as well.

But the USA considers Syria an outlaw state and regularly accuses if of state-sponsored terrorism. So if they were not sending Mr Arar to Syria to be tortured, why the hell were they sending him there? Has anybody dared asked Gonzales or Bush? I mean, what the hell does it say about US-Syrian relations when such bizarre back-door prisoner handling is being conducted???

Never you mind! God works in mysterious ways - that's all you need to know.

PS: Mr Arer was an engineer who had been living as a citizen in Canada for two decades. And he was totally innocent. And U.S. officials lied to their Canadian counterparts about his case. And Bush still says Syria is "a crossroad for terrorism." So there.