Using torture in the war on terrorism? (Insider Report).

In a CIA-controlled facility at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, captured al-Qaeda operatives and Taliban commanders "are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles," reported the December 26th Washington Post. "At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights--subject to what are known as 'stress and duress' techniques. Those who cooperate are rewarded with creature comforts, interrogators whose methods include feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity and, in some cases, money. Some who do not are turned over--'rendered,' in official parlance--to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations."

Occasionally detainees are subjected to "false flag" operations, "using fake decor and disguises meant to deceive a captive into thinking he is imprisoned in a country with a reputation for brutality, when, in reality, he is still in CIA hands," continued the report. "Sometimes, female officers conduct interrogations, a psychologically jarring experience for men reared in a conservative Muslim culture where women are never in control. In other cases ... the CIA hands [detainees] to foreign intelligence services--notably those of Jordan, Egypt and Morocco--with a list of questions the agency wants answered. These 'extraordinary renditions' are done without resort to legal process and usually involve countries with security services known for using brutal means."

"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," according to "one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists." Al-Qaeda operatives and Taliban cadres are entitled to little if any sympathy, of course. But such practices should concern freedom-loving Americans. It has been said that the means we employ are the ends in making. In an open-ended war on terrorism that may last for decades, institutionalizing torture will set the stage for a reign of terror that will not exempt those whom the torturers are supposedly protecting.