Torture Bill: Override this veto

Any bill banning the use of controversial torture techniques by the CIA seems like the sort of common, values-based bill most of us could get behind. Harsh, inhumane treatment of terror suspects (who knows to what extent those being waterboarded are actually culpable?) is a dark and foolish road to travel. The Washington Post reports that according to torture experts and congressional testimony, the CIA's waterboarding technique is similar to methods used by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and to what is now being employed in Myanmar.

Sad to say -- and predictably -- President Bush vetoed a bill that would have limited the CIA to using the same 19 interrogation techniques available to the Army. Claiming, as Bush does, that treating these suspects worse than we do any other sort of criminal is somehow justifiable in that it might prevent terrorist attacks is specious at best.

When it comes to violating human rights, the ends simply can't justify the means. Would Bush think sweatshop labor or the trafficking of sex slaves are good ideas because they create cheap goods and jobs?

Torture often leads to false confessions or false statements made on behalf of the suspect. As Navy Rear Adm. Mark Buzby (commander of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay) said last week, interrogators yield more "dependable information" from suspects by "just sitting down and having a conversation and treating them like human beings in a businesslike manner."

Congress must overturn this odious veto.