NO MORE TORTURE….The Bush administration has officially renounced the use of torture:
“All interrogations, wherever they may occur,” must be conducted without the use of cruel and inhuman tactics, the Pentagon’s senior lawyer wrote after members of Congress and human rights groups pressed the White House to renounce abusive tactics reported by U.S. government officials.
On a day when President Bush asserted that his administration intends to lead by example in a global fight against torture, Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II said that anyone found to have broken the law in the Afghanistan deaths will be prosecuted.
….Haynes replied in a letter released yesterday that the U.S. promise of good behavior goes beyond a prohibition on torture to encompass “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Avoiding comment on specific cases and practices as “inappropriate,” Haynes said the definition refers to behavior considered unconstitutional in the United States.
This is the right thing to do, so good for them. It took a little too long, but better late than never.
Now, if we can just add to this a policy that forbids turning prisoners over to other countries so that they can torture them for us, we’ll be in pretty good shape on this issue.
