“We Don’t Torture,” Says He 0

How the United States became associated with torture is not just a matter of historical interest. And that’s all the more clear today, with the publication of a major New York Times story describing the Bush administration’s ongoing circumvention of national and international prohibitions against barbaric interrogation practices.

In other words: It continues.

Finding out what our government has been doing in our name, and openly debating our interrogation policies, should have been high on the national agenda since the disclosure of the shockingly inhumane treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Few other issues speak so clearly to how we see ourselves as a people — and how others see us.

But the White House’s non-denial denials, disingenuous euphemisms and oppressive secrecy have repeatedly stifled any genuine discourse. Bush shuts down discussion by declaring that “we don’t torture” — yet he won’t even say how he defines the term.