'The cascading allegations of prisoner abuse long ago demolished Bush's claim that only a few bad apples were responsible. Yet as reports of unexplained deaths, humiliations and depravity across the services multiply, Bush has remained silent. Soldiers on the battlefield deserve leeway for their conduct under fire. But many pictures continuing to come to light look a lot more like sadism than combat actions. Either US troops are not under their commanding officers control or they are beating, burning and sodomizing suspects with the blessing of their commanders. Either explanation is inexcusable, and Bush has an obligation to say so. The president should directly state what he neglected to say lasst spring: Torture and humiliation of prisoners disgraces every American and such conduct is always unnaceptable' [LA Times]'

The moral uncertainty concerning torture is not a new conundrum, it has been argued down the centuries. But what is interesting is to examine two recent cases and compare and contrast the them.

The US is a country where just four years ago you would quite frankly disbelieve the advocacy of torture in a penal institution. And yet this is eactly what happened. In Bagram, in Abu-Ghraib, in Guatanamo and in countries where the Americans sub-contract their torture, know as the rescindment program. Worse, such abuses continue, approved of by the newly promoted Gonzales and are still enacted in Guantanamo as I write this. Perhaps more sinister is the nary a peep of protest from the moral-values right of America that are more concerned about gay-marriage than indiscriminately dropping 1000 ton bombs and napalming innocent Iraqi citiens in the name of freedom.

But let's return to this later.

There's a fascinating case that occurred recently in Germany, yes that country so critical of the US in its motivation and prosecution of the Iraqi war and its physical, mental and sexual torture of innocent people in its custody.

A senior policeman was involved in a regrettable case where an arrested kidnapper refused to reveal the whereabouts of his young child victim. Time was of the essence. The more time that passed the more likely the child would die. In his all consuming and understandable anger, he tortured the prisoner to get the information that might save that childs life. It was a waste of time, firstly the torture didn't lead to anything other than false information. As with most torture, the prisoner usually tells his tormentor what he wants to hear and not what is actually so. The child was eventually found, dead. The policeman was charged and pleaded guilty to torture. Under the circumstances, he was fined, imprisoned, demoted and is now registered as a criminal and can never again work in the German police force.

So what's the difference? The apologists in the US for the torture of detainees, no matter whether they're innocent, is eactly that which motivated the German policeman. If US lives can be saved through torture then to hell with prisoners rights, let's get on with it and stop apologising.

But there's are subtle differences. Firstly there was outrage in Germany at the policemens behaviour, even given the circumstance. Secondly, the prisoner that was tortured was actually the perpetrator, there was no doubt about his guilt, he even taunted the police with it. Thirdly, the policeman involved himself was wracked with guilt and remorse. He confessed, he expected to be punished, he knew that what he'd done, what many of us might have done in the circumstance, was wrong and accepted his punishment.

There's a well documented claim that torture rarely produces any reliable results. One British prisoner tortured in Guatanamo finally confessed to being in Afghanistan at a time when he was working in a retail store in Britain. When the US produced the damning confession, the British checked and found his employment and other records that flatly contradicted his testimony. He was eventually released along with three others and is now seeking to sue the US government for his false imprisonment and torture.

That torture rarely produces anything other than a fiction is well observed and documented. In fact the opposite has been shown time and again to be far more effective. After WWII Japanese POWs, believing their own government's propaganda, expected to be treated as badly as they treated their own POWs. But they weren't. Most were fed well, treated with respect and questioned without resort to torture. It took patience and restraint, but eventually the Japanese, almost shocked at their treatment, would open up and provide reliable, practical intelligence, such as the range of a gun, or the size of a fleet.

The Bush administration approved of the dehumanising and torture of their prisoners whether guilty or not. How can I claim this so confidently? That Guantanamo even exists and continues to exist at all is testament enough. It would not exist if the US intended to comply with International law, the Geneva convention and recognised universal Human rights. It argues through legal loopholes provided by the likes of Gonzales that Guantanamo is terra non grata and therefore anyone within it is persona non grata. They can do what they like with them, including torture to quote Gonzales, up to the point of death or internal organ failure.

Tody, the CIA invoked a rarely used power to pervent the release of official documents to the civil rights union detailing over 70 allegations of torture at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan, citing precedent from the Hoover period when he passed a ruling that when such a revelation could lead to compromising US military technology then the CIA were not obliged to reveal their methods. This is the first time that any administration has openly referred to torture of innocent people as technology. Or indeed approved of the use of torture.

The German and the US contrast is significant. The Germans have learnt through their sorrowful history that a complacency towards seemingly small acts of restriction of freedom can eventually lead to the ovens of Belsen and Auschwitz. And that any such violation is to be punished at all costs. It also learned that it only takes a few small steps of tacit approval by authority to make acts such as random imprisonment, torture and state murder institutional. That human beings can become de-sensitised to anothers pain and demise.

The Americans today meanwhile, cock a snook at global human rights, regard themselves as above and beyond the reach of International law and the Geneva convention, and tacitly condone the incarceration, de-huminisation and torture of innocent people. Which they justify in the name of God, moral values, freedom and democracy. Without any element of drama, the prevailing attitude in the US is worryingly parallel to pre-war Germany. An unquestioning public, a supine media, a pre-emptive war...

It's of the utmost irony that over sixty years later, Germany is showing the US the way that a decent, moral, democratic peaceful society should conduct and project itself throughout the world.

yechydda,