Torture by proxy update

Last week I blogged about the Republican attempt to legalise extraordinary rendition and allow terrorist suspects to be shipped overseas to be tortured at America's behest. Since then there's been little real change. The Senate has passed their own version of the bill, sans the controversial provisions, and the President through his White House Counsel has declared that he "did not propose and does not support" the provisions - but he's not promising a veto, or making any effort to kick republican legislators into line. Meanwhile, those legislators seem to think that torture is an excellent election issue, and are daring the Democrats to vote against it on the eve of the election. And all the while the supine American press uses euphemism - "provisions on anti-terrorism, identity theft, illegal immigration and border security"; "civil-liberties and law-enforcement provisions" - rather than calling those provisions what they are: an attempt to legalise torture by proxy.

If this bill passes without amendment or veto, then the American dream will be dead. A country that once stood as a beacon of liberty will have descended to the depths of having people tortured (but not openly, and not in its name), just like a shitty third-world despotism.