The damage is done: "The President of the U.S.A. wants to be able to torture Muslims if they are accused of terrorism"

In one sense, it almost doesn’t matter what the actual wording of the new “torture” compromise bill says. The damage has been done by the mere fact of the President of the United States of America, our President, publicly seeking to loosen or bend 60-year-old rules that the rest of the civilized world considers sacrosanct. They can say they are only trying to make the rules clearer until they are blue in the face, but it means nothing. The only takeaway is that the President of the United States of America, once the beacon of light in the world, wants to make it easier to torture prisoners who are accused by somebody of being terrorists – which, of course, means especially prisoners who are Arab and Muslim.

Here definitely, perception is reality, once again making it just that much more politically difficult to engage allies in this war on terror, and ensuring it will go on longer because it will be easier to recruit people to engage in terrorism. Long enough to give Republicans a leg up, no doubt.

For sure, some idiotic people will be drawn to the President’s “toughness” on this matter. When will they ever get it? Yes, you can’t run a country worrying all the time about what people in other countries think, but you pick and choose your battles. Unnecessary alienation is just dangerous in a time when international cooperation is critical. In this case, unfortunately, Bush, Cheney and Rove have decided that actively and publicly alienating other countries – an aggressive form of xenophobia – is the most politically advantageous thing they can do, that it’s exactly what a majority of Americans want. We’ll show them, by God!

You wonder how many times they can keep playing these cards and calling everyone’s bluff.