WP, Froomkin, "Do We Torture?": The Friday afternoon rollout of a new White House policy

[DeepModem Mom]

Do We Torture?
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 23, 2007

The White House's Friday afternoon rollout of its new policy on torture was a marvel of loopholes and obfuscation regarding what should be a crystal-clear moral issue.

"We don't torture" ought to be one of our nation's credos. As it happens, it is President Bush's stock response when asked to describe U.S. policy. But this latest official razzle-dazzle still leaves unclear what Bush and his aides mean when they use the word.

Friday's executive order -- compounded by a series of nonresponsive press statements by senior administration officials -- appears to leave CIA interrogators with considerable latitude to engage in harsh tactics that most people would likely consider torture.

Putting anything on paper at all was a grudging acknowledgment of the Supreme Court's decision last summer that all U.S. prisoners are covered by Geneva Convention protections against degrading treatment. And White House officials acknowledge that some tactics previously used on suspected terrorists in secret CIA prisons have now been ruled out.

But the White House still refuses to say which tactics are banned and which are OK. To Bush and his aides, the right of Americans to know what is being done in our name is outweighed by their dubious conviction that such information would serve the enemy. Instead, a White House beset by credibility problems is asking us to trust it....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/23/BL2007072300799.html?hpid=opinionsbox1