As depressing as it is to see the American government explicitly turn its back on one of the only absolute human rights, I am trying to see the silver lining, which is that the Bush administration's attempts to get around the prohibition on torture offer a refreshing chance for honesty on a subject that is rife with hypocrisy. Many of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions are honoured only in the breach, by all parties to all conflicts since their codification in 1949. The prohibition against torture and against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, in spite of being considered some of the most fundamental of human rights, is violated constantly with little to no repercussion for those directly commiting the abuses much less for those who should be held responsible for indirectly allowing the abuses to be committed, even with the efforts of various war crimes tribunals and soon the International Criminal Court. The United States, along with everyone else, has not been innocent of such abuses in the past. That the US government is now laying all its cards on the table is frightening as it reflects its belief that it is now more acceptable to claim torture is a necessary evil. But at the same time, by being upfront about its intentions instead of saying one thing and covertly doing another, it allows the US public and other branches of the government (the Senate, the judiciary, etc) to weigh in on the issue, to publicly discuss WHY torture is and should be unacceptable, even in the so-called "war against terrorism".

There are some people who are willing to buy the "necessary" or "lesser" evil argument- that in order to save innocent lives from terrorist acts, torture should be allowed as it is the lesser evil- after all what is the suffering of a few terrorists compared to that of thousands of others? For these people, the only argument they might listen to is that torture shouldn't be used because it is a highly ineffective method of gaining real intelligence, as under torture, it is well acknowledged that people will confess to anything, will tell the torturer what they want to hear, anything to make it stop. To suggest that we should then rely on this information is ridiculous. Another argument for these people is that once the US starts openly using torture against detainess and flagrantly flouting the laws of war, then we can expect the exact same thing from the other side and our soldiers and citizens will have lost any protectio they might have had from such treatment. Not to mention the loss of credibility the US would suffer in its dealings with other countries and the fact that this would only increase the anti-American sentiment (and justifiably so) which is often used to fuel the fires of wannabe terrorists and recruiters.

The strongest argument, for those that truly believe that torture is the greater evil, is that even if torture IS effective (which it isn't) it STILL shouldn't be allowed because it is a violation of the most important aspects of humanity, the loss of which puts us all at risk and means that we have become the very enemy that we were trying to fight. If the US government has unwittingly mainstreamed the discussion of the validity of torture, this is an opportunity for those who oppose torture to try to positively influence the minds of the American public and maybe ultimately, regain America's international reputation as a human rights defender.

Dear Editor,

Many,many thanks for carrying this wonderful article

by Ratner and Miles. They have done a good job of illuminating this whole sordid situation.

Bush the Republicans,the radical religious right

evangelical fundamentalists and the Catholic Church

heirarchy who support all of this will someday have to

answer to God and the American People for their on-

going perpetations of these crimes against all humanity.

I am almost ashamed to admit I am a Catholic. Neither

the Bush/Republicans nor the Catholic Church are performing these crimes in my name and they better never think that they are. Those Americans who voted

for the Bush Administration have these sins/crimes on

their conscience for the rest of their lives and will

have to answer to God when they die.

I am completely amazed that religious people in the

US do not speak out in a loud voice against these

crimes. Where are your morals? The very fine and truly

righteous efforts of Mr. Ratner and Sen. McCain are

shining beacons that ALL members of the human race

must support.

Signed: A Staunch Conservative/Humanist and

Independant Voter

Thank you Michael Ratner and Sara Miles for this great article. No one should ever have to experience torture, not even those who think we should do it to keep us safe. I do have one quibble:

"[O]ur government, flawed as it is, has launched crusades against human rights abusers abroad and helped prevent terrible suffering by demanding that torture stop. Now we are facing a new world: one in which the most powerful country on the planet publicly declares itself above the laws that have protected individuals everywhere from disappearance, torture and murder."

This may be true, and it certainly is true that we are now, for the first time in our history, openly advocating for the right to torture. However our government has a well documented history of covertly supporting and sanctioning murder and torture when it suits it, with a particularly sorry record of supporting brutal regimes in Latin America. Those security forces in Guatemala were trained and equiped at least in part with US tax dollars. In El Salvador, the regime we supported conducted a brutal campaign of torture and death to exterminate the opposition. Same is true in Honduras, where John Negroponte is credibly linked with the abuses. We openly supported an illegal war against a sovereign Nicaragua. The list goes on and on. It is not for nothing that officials have been speaking of the "El Salvador option" to pacify Iraq.