o far, in reading numerous blogs about the torture ban that Bush has conceded to, I haven’t really seen this side of the argument presented too often: If Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the cabal want to torture, they will.

One thing decidedly missing from Condi’s not-so-eloquent speeches last week was the fact that she kept insisting that the US will not now, nor ever will torture since it is against the rules, so to speak. What isn’t mentioned is that torture is NOT illegal in numerous countries that we call our allies. So while the US military, CIA, FBI, etc. may not torture, what is stopping us from continuing rendition flights and just dropping off the suspects to a country whose government has no problem whatsoever with torture? I mean, Mohammed is grabbed up on suspicion of connections to Al-Qaeda. Since we don’t torture (’cuz the President said so!), we drop him off to be water-boarded, placed on the rack and “interrogated” until our “allies” get a confession. At which point we take the “intel” and proceed with “stoppin’ the terrists!”

Taking the above position, the Bush Administration still maintains their plausible deniability. They really can honestly say “We Don’t Torture” and mean it. Unfortunately, the beatings will continue until morale improves we win the unwinnable War on Terror. Thankfully, our Congress realizes what a bad situation allowing an exception to the proposed torture amendment would be.