When the US rescinded its signature to the War Crimes Treaty, in May of 2002, it was already obvious that the Bush administration feared the consequences of its conscious abridgment of those provisions. Does a rescinded signature guarantee the offending party permanent immunity from the provisions of a treaty to which the offending state once committed? And who will bring the charges?

Joe Beckmann, Somerville, MA, US

Sadly, this is just one of so many instances where the Bush administration has employed phrases with appalling political associations.
From the beginning, when Bush called America's operations in the Middle East a "crusade," this administration has used language - conciously it would seem - designed to taunt and enrage the very people that it claims to be helping.

A. Glaser, Philadelphia, PA, US

I much appreciate the turnabout, Mr. Sullivan. But how many people, do you think, have been been using your own conservative -- though specious -- past rhetoric as bolster for their own trust in this Bush administration? The argument that you and the rest of the ditto-heads didn't know then what you know now is simply a tautology. You didn't care to look very carefully because you were so sure, and because you were so sure, dissent was cowed and proof obscured. In fact, the truthtellers, as is so often the case, were vilified. The sad truth is that what passes for conservatism and patriotism now is the most brutal kind of dictatorship -- a tyranny over thoughtful consideration and open democratic process by bad conscience.

Rich Tapper, Chapel Hill, NC

I am appalled at the use of the torture techniques that are apparently used by our government, but to say that "the public, by and large, remains indifferent" is simply not true. Everyone I know is deeply troubled by the use of torture techniques. Tell me, please, what can we do?!!! I am in despair at the sense of powerlessness I feel in relation to this administration (I did not vote for Bush either time) or the direction we, as a country, are headed.

Cynthia Tucker, Twain Harte, California

In J.M. Coetzee's prescient masterpiece, "Waiting For The Barbarian", written in 1980, the victims become the very barbarians who had victimised them. The scary thing here in the U.S. is that we now have a compliant Supreme Court who has recently refused to hear a case of proven rendition and torture of an innocent man, thus giving the go ahead to an anything goes policy.
The warmongering AIPAC bought Hillary Clinton has herself put the green light on a war with Iran by voting to proclaim Iran's Revolutionary Guard "terrorists". Methinks, Madame Clinton, that it is you who is the terrorist, you are Coetzee's Barbarian, just like everyone else in the current admninistration.

stanley hersh, new york city, U.S.

we pontificate about our constituition to other countries as long as we are not threatened inside our country.If then we behave exactly as the authoritarian rulers outside USA. we have sent an example to brutal interrogation and our appeal to other countries will be laughed at.

shalom, forest/va, usa

Unfortunately, it will be many years before the extreme violence, torture, and murder against US citizens and others by the Bush administration becomes known publicly. By that time, we may have moved on to even more evil and brutal techniques.

Jay Chawla, Gurgaon, Haryana

Just be careful and think before who you vote for next time then Sullivan.

F.S.Sumeers, N.Y/London,

Well said.
While US and allied triumphed over Nazism ultimately on battlefields, communism succumbed to our values and that was largely the triumph of our inalienable rights and free enterprise over a system that routinely persecuted its opposition using torture. And oh my, we have come so far. It is unacceptable that we have to step over the very values that we claim to champion and practice in order to save them.

HM

H. Montazer, San Jose / CA, US

All those crazy moonbat liberals like to point out that torture doesn't work, but that is just not so. In the 30's, the Russian Government was able to effectively use enhanced interrogation techniques to uncover a vast hidden network of spies, saboteurs and wreckers in their country. There were millions of them. That's what I call "return on success"!

Chauncey Flatbottem, Skeezehole, USA

The WW2 crimes were committed by politicians or soldiers. Some were later hanged. Now we have a concerted effort to conceal, justify and collaborate that extends, not only to the Justice Department in the United States, but also, if we are to believe the European Council of Ministers, our UK police, (who claim the rendition flights did not travel through the UK in contradiction to the European report), and, if the police were not telling Parliament the truth, (as Europe surely implies), the UK Home Office too who must have known that the police lied to Parliament. So this is not simply a crime by a few in the US, it extends to the highest levels of the United Kingdom and brings the entire UK legal establishment into disrepute with the implication that, sometime hense, as with WW2, these crimes will be brought to justice and if found guilty, individuals complicit in these crimes will face the ultimate penalty.

Who will be able to accept and act on a charge against the UK Home Office?

Chris Coles, Medstead, Alton, United Kingdom

In America, we need words and leadership from people who can tell BEFOREHAND when something is going to go horribly awry. People like you, Colin Powell, former administration aides, and other pundits have recently been expressing your changes of opinion about the war(s), and their conduct. I am indifferent to your flip-flopping. There were plenty of us who knew beforehand that this administration was a monster, and we tried to warn you all. In return, we were demonized and shouted down as unpatriotic, etc.

Are you happy now? Perhaps you can try and redeem yourself by shouting loudly and longly about the equally misleading run-up to the seemingly inevitable war against Iran. There are plenty of US troops and innocent Iranians to save. Use your power for good. Use your power for peace!

matt, brooklyn, ny, usa

What this all reveals is the true intent of the neo-conservatives & their allies. They desire an autocratic government, restricted civil liberties (decided by them) and a return to the Gilded Age where the wealth of the nation was in the hands of a few & everyone else lived in poverty & fear. As to the good old U.S. of A. having never tortured: Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, etc. And let's not forget our crowning achievement- The School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. We don't stinkin' torture; we train others to do it for us. God Bless our ability for self deception & denial. Thanks to H. Lang of Munich for your kind words of support. I, too, am not optimistic. If people took to the streets en masse and demanded change, I'm afraid the world would witness another Burma. The government would not play nice & there would be many citizens (thugs?) willing to take up iron bars & truncheons to help restore order! "God Bless Captain Vere!"

Geoffrey C. Gibbons, Lithia, Florida, U.S.

From almost the beginning of the war... the Bush administration made a strong and formative decision: ... it would do what no American administration had done before. It would torture detainees to get information.

Who told you this is the first American administration to torture detainees? Read Ernst von Salomom about torture of detainees in Germany after World War II. Read Nick Turse from Columbia University about torture during the Vietnam War. Read about the US training of death squads in South America. Don't just blame this administration, put the blame where it belongs: our inclination to brutality and our stupidity.

How much time will it take people to understand that a war is inherently dirty? That there is no such thing as a just war. Agreements have to be made at a table, in ink, not from behind the barrel of a gun and with the blood of others.

Regelsberger, Gleisdorf, Austria

Bryan, you are part of the modern contingency of fascists known once as the "Good Germans." It is people like you who don't believe in the mantra "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And thus allow pernicious policies to start down that slippery slope into an orwellian nightmare. A nightmare that you won't see until it's too late because you aren't a very good history student. Hit the books kid. There's still hope for you.

Clinton, South Bend, IN

This article makes many assertions with no evidence to back them. Abu Ghraib is mentioned as an example of torture, though most do not consider the incident as more than humiliation. This while the enemies are finding new ways to hack Mrs. Jones's son's head off. Personally, I am hacked off that the US is not more aggressive with this enemy...

Bryan, la vergne, Tennesse USA

President Bush has managed to take away many of our most cherished freedoms though his skewed interpretation of the document he is sworn to uphold. He has caused to be committed bombing of civilians, torture, defilement of religious beliefs, etc, in short, everything Bin Laden said he would cause the American government to do. You have to ask yourself over and over, whose side is this President really on!?

Pahl Scharping, Newport, OR, USA

Good article.
I wish my PTSD would let me stay focused long enough to do as well. I do believe that Sullivan still is wearing rose tinted glasses when he states the US "has never itself tortured."
Now an argument can be and has been made that that if the things being tortured are not people, then it's OK. Examples I think of are the "water cure" in the Philippines, my experience in Vietnam and stateside 'third degree' interrogations.

At a showing of an anti-torture documentary, "Breaking the Silence," earlier this week, the question was raised , "How can people torture other people?'
My response was that, "One to remember that one doesn't people, one doesn't kill people. The things being tortured and killed are 'criminals,' 'the enemy,' 'dinks,' 'goo-goos,' 'slopes' and 'gooks,' not people."

Thomas Baxter, Tallahassee, Florida USA

with the exception of warming up to north korea (and then too under pressure from the south koreans, and after making heavy weather out of chump change in a macau bank), and possibly the nuclear deal with india (and i emphasize "possibly") this has been the single most unimpressive presidency in the history of the united states

george w bush with his brand of stubborm, glib and aggressive unilateralism has squandered away all the sympathy the world had for the united states (and there was plenty, even among muslim nations) after 9/11

he has systematically subverted the constitution, invaded privacy and compromised domestic freedoms, endorsed a blighted and retrogressive version of his christian fundamentalism in matters of health and public policy, given tax breaks to the richest, undermined sovereign states worldwide, and perhaps most importantly left the nation a staggering debt as a result of his ill advised war in iraq

it is a wonder the heartless materialist was not impeached

lalit ganapathy, chicago, US

Well put. I would like to point out that after torturing thousands only one or two prisoners have been prosecuted. Torturing innocent people is never justified.

Jason , fort lauderdale, usa

The US people didn't sacrifice their sons and daughters just so that one day the likes of Bush, the Clintons and Cheney can rob them of their freedom. The US is after all called the "United" States. The US is after all protected by the US Constitution which guarantees your inalienable rights to freedom from dictatorial rule. The Constitution clearly states "We the People". It does not say "me the decider" or "we the government". The Constitution is also the Supreme law of the land, so what it declares is the law - not what Bush, the Clintons, Cheney or the corrupt senators declare to be the law.

U.S. Declaration of Independence
... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

PAUL W KINCAID, Sussex, NB Canda

fine piece, heart and head.

Sean McHugh, Liverpool, UK

I dared to tell the American acquaintance of my girlfriend on Christmas Eve 2002 that I felt the US - with its indefinite imprisonment of „Enemy Combattants“- had just abolished the main legal provision that distinguished 13th century Edwardian England, the United States and Weimar Germany from the Nazi Reich: what you in England call the „Great Writ of Habeas Corpus“, the right not to be imprisoned indefinitely and/ or without reason and/ or legal counsel.

A lot of crying, sobbing and hugging ensued. Sorry for that. But now, 5 years later, it is clear to most Germans, that the US is only ONE more major terrorist attack/ catastrophe away from an authoritarian dictatorship. See how fast it goes. The 3rd Reich was a dictatorship but you are ostensibly living in a Republic with a free press. Will you be able to stop the authoritarians in their tracks? I tell you, millions of Germans are privately rooting for you free and resistive Americans, but we are not optimistic, God bless you...

H.Lang, Munich, Germany