This IHT article underscores how strained the Bush administration’s arguments have become in defending some of its more unsavory practices, such as shipping suspected terrorists to countries where they can be tortured.

American officials were defending their policies Friday before a U.N. panel investigating possible breaches of the Convention Against Torture, a 1987 treaty that bans prisoner abuse and that the U.S. signed and ratified.

The reason that America needs to send terror suspects to countries with poor human rights records, the officials said, was to keep dangerous individuals out of the United States. But that doesn’t make much sense. Suspects held by the U.S. remain in custody and unable to harm others. Those abroad, on the other hand, seem to find ways to escape. How does it make America safer, then, to ship its problems elsewhere?

When the U.S. sends suspects to these countries, American officials also said, it seeks assurances that the individuals will not be tortured. That argument seemed less than credible to the U.N. panel. “The very fact that you are asking for diplomatic assurances means you are in doubt,” said Andreas Mavrommatis, chairman of the committee.

As for allegations of torture and murder by U.S. personnel, an American official insisted that the criticism had become “so hyperbolic as to be absurd.” He added: “I would ask you not to believe every allegation that you have heard.”

Fair enough. But let’s remember that American soldiers themselves have made these allegations. And given that the Bush administration won’t even take the simple, good-faith step of allowing U.N. investigators to interview prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, it’s not hard to understand why critics would be paranoid about prisoner abuse. Hyperbole feeds on secrecy.

It’s worth reviewing some relevant passages from the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. is legally bound to follow:

[Torture is defined as] any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity….

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction…. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture….

No State Party shall expel, return (refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture….

Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined [above], when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity….

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen