As you probably know, the U.S. Senate recently voted 90-9 in favor of an explicit ban on torture by U.S. forces. This would seem to be something everyone can agree on, right? That torturing people in our custody isn't a very good idea, not to mention an aggregious human rights violation which even the most soulless, Machiavelian pragmatist would have a tough time morally defending?

Well, apparently not. The president has stated an intent to veto any bill which contains the anti-torture language, and Cheney has all but stated, "I'm a big fan of torture." As White House council, Alberto Gonzales wrote key memos allowing the Justice Department to sidestep the Geneva Convention entirely, paving the way for the abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Gonzales was rewarded with a promotion to Attorney General. And Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are only the tip of the iceberg.

With recent revelations of secret CIA torture camps around the world, some in eastern European counties who last saw such human rights violations in the form of Soviet gulags (a comparison recently made by Amnesty International, and indignantly rejected by the White House), and the discovery of new torture allegations in Baghdad, it has become apparent that torture at the hands of U.S. forces can no longer be cast as a series of unfortunate but isolated incidents. This administration has carefully and methodically institutionalized torture over the past four years. They have silently encouraged military interrogators to "push the boundaries", with assurances that those further up the chain of command would look the other way. This strategy has been incredibly successful for the Defense Department leadership, as Donald Rumsfeld so ably demonstrated at his hearings before Congress a year or so ago when the first images from Abu Ghraib emerged, carefully evading any personal responsiblity while vowing to remedy the situation.

Would that the acts depicted in the Abu Ghraib photos, or even the religious violations reported at Guantanamo Bay were the worst of the offenses. The sad truth, however, is that a great number of individuals have died as a result of U.S. torture. Detainees in our custody have been drowned, died as a result of severe beatings, and suffered fatal heart attacks in numbers suspiciously high for such a young group of people.

And the world is taking notice. One cannot overestimate the damage done by the Abu Ghraib scandal to the popularity of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, the abuses marked a turning point, before which most of the population was generally amicable to our troops and appreciative of their efforts. Now, the Iraqi population is mostly distrustful and resentful of the American forces. It would be rediculous not to assume that this destruction of trust has manifested itself in increased danger to our troops, and probably increased casualties.

There is a more global impact of our transgressions in Iraq, Cuba, and around the world. The U.S. used to be seen as a champion of the defense of human rights. Now, says Mary Robinson, the former UN Commissioner for Human Rights as well as the former president of Ireland, "It's much harder...for President Bush in China to talk to China about human rights...Where's his credibility?"

Iraqis have begun saying that the human rights situation in their country is at least as bad as it ever was under Saddam Hussein. When one considers the more than 10,000 Iraqis that have likely been killed by American forces (likely, because no such numbers are confirmable) since 2003, and add in the torture that our government (which fancies itself a model for Iraqi democracy) has sactioned, this statement seems less like hyperbole, and more like the truth.

We have commited aggregious moral offenses, undermined the safety of our troops abroad and civillian population at home, and destroyed our global status as a defender of basic human rights and an enemy of the evils of torture. It is time the "War on Terror" turned its focus inward and exposed the U.S.'s own terrible crimes. Ms. Robinson described the situation best in concluding, "It has been a terrible tragedy of responding to acts of terrorism, that governments have forgotten what it is that they are really defending."