“It’s not only astonishing that the Bush crowd can’t see for themselves the self-evident benefits of an ethical m.o., but also that a firm, clear word, backstage from the right quarters, wasn’t sufficient to reverse it, or else hasn’t been executed correctly.”

But, but, but… “American values are universal” (page 2, last para).

Phone-in torture allegations, as opposed to the accusations of the FBI itself?.

Read that post, and the document it links to. If you want to quibble over how much pain qualifies as torture you can to it over at Blair or something.

There is no doubt or ambiguity about whether the US has tortured people. The only questions are how much, how often, and how high up. All the possible answers are disturbing, depressing, and disgusting.

The really weird thing (in light of the particulars of this post) has been that the various allies have somehow not found the right leverage to drive home what is a screamingly obvious case, both ethically and as a utilitarian matter, against these hideous practices. It’s not only astonishing that the Bush crowd can’t see for themselves the self-evident benefits of an ethical m.o., but also that a firm, clear word, backstage from the right quarters, wasn’t sufficient to reverse it, or else hasn’t been executed correctly. It leads one to a larger and rather interesting question, but one that’s sort of controversial, so I won’t derail the thread by bringing it up now. Maybe down the road.

we can’t take American assurances that they do not torture detainees at face value””

No. We can’t. For shame. And fuckin’ scary to boot.