torture logic

if anyone is still a little puzzled why president bush has invested so much of his waning political capital into an end run around the geneva convention, it's not just to save himself the cost of a trip to the hague, although that alone would certainly be reason enough.

juan cole relates a most enlightening lecture delivered by former uk ambassador to uzbekistan craig murray at a recent academic symposium on central eurasia:

the bush administration has been about "the greater middle east" (including central asia). it has been about basing rights in those areas. it says it is fighting a "war on terror" that is unlike past wars and may go on for decades. it has been about rounding up and torturing large numbers of iraqis, afghans and others. this region has most of the world's proven oil and gas reserves. why is the bush administration so attached to torturing people that it would pressure a supine congress into raping the us constitution by explicitly permitting some torture techniques and abolishing habeas corpus for certain categories of prisoners? ... boys and girls, it is because torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren't really any, or aren't very many, or aren't enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget.

boys and girls, is there any doubt that when this chapter of american history has been committed to ink that it will catalogue the war on terror with the spanish inquistion and the salem witch trials?