We Do Not Torture.

Today Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice told the Ukrainian press corps that the Geneva convention which bans the use of torture "extends to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the U.S. or outside the U.S." This is the most unbelievable line of bullshit I have ever heard, and I am offended as a citizen and a taxpayer that she and the adminsitration would actually have me shovel it into my mouth and swallow it.

Has not the Bush administration made torture an integral part of the "War on Terror," legitimizing it in memos signed by Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzalez himself? Pictures from Abu-Ghraib confirm it, as do memos with Donald Rumsfeld's handwriting dated in the weeks before the pictures hit the news headlines. New revelations of old Soviet prisons in Europe being used by the United States in said war certainly suggest it, as do a wave of accusations by people recently "freed" from such institutions, so why the rhetorical doublespeak by Rice?

For a gaggle of power mongers so obsessed with "truth" and "objectivity" to flatly deny facts is both troubling and promising. Troubling, in that I think they actually believe the nonsense they're trying so hard to articulate, and promising in that it seems that fewer and fewer people are viewing this administration with anything except a potent mixture of contempt and pity. Saddam Hussein currently stands trial for crimes against humanity, and his insistence that he is above the law seems pathetic from the outside looking in. As the policymakers in Washington circle the wagons, one can only wonder if similar trials await them. I hope they spend some time wondering the same thing.