Torture of prisoners never acceptable

WASHINGTON — What in the world are George Bush and his alter ego, Dick Cheney, thinking when it comes to handling suspects and prisoners in the war on terror? This country doesn't torture people or hold them indefinitely without due process or deny them any of the other protections that are afforded by the Constitution, international agreements and just plain civilized behavior.

This nation doesn't set up clandestine prisons around the globe to hold suspected terrorists in so-called "black sites" where no one but CIA operatives knows what occurs. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died to make sure that the Gestapo never exists here and that even our enemies are treated with the civility that they would never accord us.

That is the point that Republican Sen. John McCain has made eloquently in introducing legislation to end any use of extreme and degrading coercion by our military and intelligence gathering forces.

Maintaining a humane system of justice even for our enemies is our greatest strength. If it leads to some failures in apprehending those who would harm us, it is the price that we must pay for our own liberty. For the president of the United States not to understand this is almost incomprehensible. It is equally bad for him to openly defend such policies and for the vice president to lobby to continue these practices on grounds that terrorists are faceless, shadowy enemies who should not be afforded the same humane treatment given prisoners from the battlefield.

Presidents can no longer get away as they once did with looking the other way while their agents take measures outside international law. Plausible deniability is almost impossible to achieve in this world of 24-hour journalistic oversight.

The situation at Guantanamo and the tragedy of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq did enormous harm to this nation's image and aided and abetted the goals of terrorism nearly as much as the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America, lending credence to the claims of those who hate us that we are far from the sympathetic, honorable people we profess to be. A good case can be made in these situations that we are little better than those who would destroy our institutions.