"We Do Not Torture!"

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"We do not torture," President Bush told reporters during a visit to Panama.

He said enemies were plotting to hurt the US and our government would pursue them, but would do so "under the law".

Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that repeated protestations from President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other US administration officials that "we do not torture" miss the point that the US has by any meaningful standard engaged in illegal cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners and needs to change course urgently.

"US Attorney General Gonzales claimed that what we saw in the photos was not approved, but we can’t believe Alberto Gonzales. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the stripping of persons naked, use of dogs, and hooding as interrogation tactics in an action memo on December 2, 2002 and in another memo on April 16, 2003, adding that if additional interrogation techniques for a particular detainee were required he might approve them upon written request. There is no indication that his 2003 illegal authorization has been withdrawn. We can’t trust Donald Rumsfeld. Moreover, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski stated in August of this year that after Major General Miller was sent to Iraq to GITMOize interrogation tactics a Rumsfeld memo was posted on a pole outside at Abu Ghraib and that it authorized the use of dogs for interrogation."

Paust is the Mike & Teresa Baker Law Center Professor at the University of Houston and a former Captain, U.S. Army JAGC and member of the faculty at the Judge Advocate General’s School (1969-1973). He is also Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law International Criminal Interest Group.

According to Media Matters for America, the public is getting false information from the media as well as the government.

* NPR's Renee Montagne failed to note Bush administration has not ruled out "waterboarding" torture (December 16, 2005)

* Several times Bill O'Reilly (FOX News) falsely claimed Geneva Conventions apply only to "uniform[ed]" soldiers "fighting for a recognized country" (December 12, 2005)

* Rush Limbaugh repeated NewsMax.com's false claim that McCain "admitted that torture worked on him" (December 9, 2005)

* Limbaugh also falsely suggested that "9-11 Commission didn't say anything about" torture (December 8, 2005)


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According to today's dispatch from Associated Press:

Investigator: U.S. 'Outsourced' Torture
By JAN SLIVA, Associated Press Writer

The head of a European investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe said Tuesday that evidence pointed to the existence of a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the United States, and that it was highly likely European governments were aware of it.