St. Petersburg Times, 12/11: Tortuous excuses on torture

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http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/11/Columns/Tortuous_excuses_on_t.shtml

Tortuous excuses on torture
St. Petersburg Times, By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Published December 11, 2005

It should have been dubbed the "You gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes?" tour.

During her trip to Europe last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded to the uproar surrounding the revelations over the CIA's chain of secret prisons, America's rendition activities and the Bush administration's use of abusive interrogation techniques by offering gymnastic legalisms rather than coming clean.

Rice made ridiculous claims in light of the people who keep turning up with credible stories of U.S. agents sending them to foreign prisons where they are brutalized. And her words belied the dogged efforts of our vice president to get an explicit CIA exception to antitorture rules.

When Rice said the United States "does not permit, tolerate or condone torture" of prisoners, she was basing it on a Queen of Hearts definition of torture, which is whatever the Bush administration says it is. Also note the use of the present tense "does not" as opposed to "has not."

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