In Case You Missed It...

It's official now: the United States is a torture nation.

WASHINGTON - The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Wow. Here is the lasting legacy of Bush and the neo-cons; an admittance by a member of the federal government that this nation engaged in the torture of a prisoner as a matter of policy. And the end result is tainted evidence that would never stand up in a trial. And even though military prosecutors say they have new evidence that wasn't coerced, Crawford is telling them "no dice." And she is right; once the torture is done, any evidence gained thereafter is suspect.

I've made the argument a hundred times here; torture is not only useless as a means of gathering information, but it lowers us as well. We do the Founding Fathers and the country a grave disservice when we stain our national honor through the use of torture. But apparently that matters little to Bush and his supporters, who give into fear and allow it to dictate their every move.