WP: 'Values' We Have to Hide Abroad

[kskiska]

By Eugene Robinson

If the secret prisons where U.S. agents interrogated "high-value" terrorism suspects with "alternative" techniques are so legitimate and legal, if they're so fully consistent with American values and traditions, then why are they overseas?

(snip)

In other words, the prisons (which apparently have been emptied, for the moment, but not closed down) were kept secret because they're overseas. But the Decider said not a word about why he decided the prisons had to be located in other countries in the first place.

Why not hold the suspects, say, in one of the many super-secure facilities in and around Washington? They would be much more accessible to the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon and any other agency that wanted a crack at them. And since al-Qaeda is already determined to attack the United States, why even risk creating potential problems for loyal overseas allies? Why not interrogate America's deadliest enemies on American soil?

Since the president didn't address this question, I'll try. The only reason that makes any sense to me is that the Decider wanted to put his secret prisons beyond the reach of U.S. courts. I think the president and his lawyers knew from the beginning that detaining suspects indefinitely and wringing information out of them with methods that international agreements define as torture -- "an alternative set of procedures" was the president's delicate euphemism -- wouldn't amuse even the most law-and-order federal judge.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701617.html