Our shame (continued)

Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
17 June 2008
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to documents that a Senate committee released Tuesday.

If someone could explain to me how W's policies distinguish the U.S. from your run-of-the-mill totalitarian regime, I'd appreciate it!

Hiding detainees in our custody from the Red Cross???
How low can we go?

Meanwhile,

... former Navy general counsel Alberto J. Mora, who fought a private battle within the Pentagon to maintain longstanding interrogation rules, writes that "our Nation's policy decision to use so-called 'harsh' interrogation techniques during the War on Terror was a mistake of massive proportions. . . . This interrogation policy -- which may aptly be labeled a 'policy of cruelty' -- violated our founding values, our constitutional system and the fabric of our laws, our over-arching foreign policy interests, and our national security."
...
And he [Mora] says the cost has been paid in American lives: "[T]here are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
[Torture's Bad Seeds, The Washington Post, 17 June 2008. Emphasis added.]

Again, what has become of my country?

Stop the madness!