THE BUSH administration is shredding what remains of its claim to endorse humane treatment of captives seized in its "war on terrorism."

The president declared Monday, during a stop in Panama on the way back from a hemispheric summit, that "we do not torture." His assurance might have credibility if it were aligned with his administration's future policy with respect to the hundreds of prisoners detained by U.S. authorities since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Unfortunately, it does not correspond with his threat to veto military-spending legislation if it includes a Senate-passed amendment to ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of any detainee.

Nor do Bush's soothing words make even minimally intelligible the personal appeal last week by Vice President Dick Cheney, to Republican senators, to exempt the CIA from the torture prohibition.

That would require a change of heart (or a hardening of the heart) by much of the GOP delegation, because the amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had won approval by a lopsided bipartisan margin of 90 to 9.

The administration's political dilemma is that most Americans detest the thought of physical torture being administered in their name to even the most fearsome of suspected terrorists, though the issue of what legal rights are owing to captives does not arouse the same concern.

Bush and Cheney would rather keep the discussion under wraps. Cheney's pitch to his party's senators was, accordingly, made behind closed doors.

The Bush camp has also kept silent for a week on the Washington Post's report of a secret network of CIA-run prisons overseas, for long-term confinement and interrogation of terrorist suspects. Locations of these unacknowledged "black sites" beyond the reach of U.S. legal safeguards are said to include Thailand and two Eastern European countries.

Why the extreme secrecy and silence about a program for which Americans unwittingly pay taxes? Because normal congressional oversight, public scrutiny and possible legal challenges would quickly bring it to an end.

The government is responsible for protecting us from repetition of the Sept. 11 atrocity on our soil, and working toward a safer world. Running a secret system of lockups, and abusing prisoners, is not the way to success.

Commentary:
Wing nuts would have us believe Bush is "plain-spoken." If that's so, why doesn't he rule out secret prisons and torture? The reason is simple, he's lying. He believes in torture and that's why the CIA has secret prisons all over the world. His party controls congress and they won't remove him from office no matter how many crimes he commits. The GOP has tied itself to the immoral and illegal actions of Bush. Voters should recall how reluctant they were to investigate his crimes.

When a congressman or senator takes an oath of office, they swear to protect the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Instead of protecting the constitution, the GOP defends Bush.

Some of our political pundits think torture is bad, but they ddidn't always think so. US torture pundits

Some of our pro torture pundits:
Jonathan Alter
Alan Dershowitz
Tony Blankley
Laurence O´Donnell
John McLaughlin
Paula Zahn
Tucker Carlson and historian
Jay Winik (maybe)