President Bush's most trusted sidekick, Karen Hughes, faces the Herculean task of refurbishing America's overseas reputation, especially with Muslims. As the new under secretary of State for public diplomacy, Hughes must overcome the impression America is a pompous hypocrite.
As she takes office, contradictory U.S. policies on torture are being exposed: one that sanctimoniously rejects torture as beneath superior U.S. virtues, while another secretly approves kidnapping and torture.
President Bush and his warlords hatched this quackery.
They smugly claim U.S. "moral values" forbid torture and self-righteously repeat the mantra when GIs are caught torturing or killing detainees. Pentagon generals denounce them as rogue soldiers.
Now, news media, disgusted overseas governments and tenacious human rights groups have unmasked an officially condoned torture policy--"renditions"—presumably authorized on the q.t. by the commander-in-chief.
"Renditions" works this way: CIA agents, sometimes wearing hoods, swoop down on terror suspects in foreign countries, body-snatch them off streets, hustle them aboard U.S. registered corporate aircraft owned by a CIA front company, then hold them in foreign countries where they're tortured for information. Photos of the luxurious Gulfstream G-V jet that airlifts hostages have been published widely.
Some CIA agents handle torture. Other abuse is by local thugs in countries denounced by our government as chambers of horrors.
The dirty secret is no longer secret: victims of CIA kidnappings have been released and are talking. Furthermore, nations whose citizens have been snatched are fed up. U.S. allies Italy, Germany and Sweden are investigating whether the United States broke local laws. Duh?
President Bush wants it both ways: to be a faith-based "moral values" president that lectures other nations about the righteousness of civilized behavior, while covertly blessing the dark arts of brutality practiced by the world's most revolting scoundrels.
The devout who believe born-again Bush is incapable of monstrous, unchristian policies have only delusional explanations to comfort their ethical torment—exceptions are made for torturing "suspects" who're Muslim, or, Bush is kept in the dark by subordinates.
That leaves apologists looking hypocritical about unchristian cruelty toward Muslims. Ascribing ignorance to Bush would only fortify critics who claim he's the hapless puppet of Vice President Cheney and a cult of neocons.
Families of GIs charged with abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison surely have grounds to demand President Bush explain why their sons and daughters were tried and sentenced like criminals for far less than the CIA abuses sanctioned by the White House.
Pat Murphy
