My local fishwrap, Eugene Register-Guard, has been running an editorial on the op-ed page every day for almost a month now. It is always on the same topic, the refusal of Bushco to disavow torture. It also includes a silhouette drawing of the Abu Ghraib prisoner who was forced to stand on a bucket with a hood over his head, his arms stretched out, and wires attached to his testicles. The silhouette is draped in an American flag. They are going to keep running it every day until the anti-torture legislation is passed and signed by Bushco. Here is yesterday's editorial:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/12/07/ed.edit.torture.1207.p1.php?section=opinion'We do not torture'
A Register-Guard Editorial
Published: Wednesday, December 7, 2005
It has been 29 days since President Bush declared at a news conference in Panama that "we do not torture," and the president's assertion has recently been echoed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In an effort to rebuff European outrage over the U.S. practice of spiriting captured enemies away to secret CIA prisons outside the United States, Rice adamantly denied that the Bush administration "authorizes or condones torture" of detainees anywhere in the world.
European leaders can be forgiven for their reluctance to accept Rice's assertion at face value.
Bush's key advisers have shamelessly redefined "torture" to exclude physically and psychologically abusive interrogation techniques that have been condemned for years by civilized nations.
At one point, a more civilized U.S. State Department also vigorously opposed the practices Rice now defends: simulated drowning, mock execution, sexual humiliation, stress positions and cold cells.
Sen. John McCain is absolutely right not to let Bush's wordsmiths alter a syllable of his proposed ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody
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