We do not torture

"We do not torture" President Bush said Monday.

Tell that to Muhammad al-Assad, Salah Nasser Salim 'Ali, and Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah who were recently released, still hooded, after three years of beind "disappeared" and tortured by U.S. agents, according to an Amnesty International report.

Tell that to Hussain Youssouf Mustafa, who spent two years in American capitvity, and told this story to Mother Jones:

Mustafa estimated that he was interrogated about 25 times. Sometimes, he said, the soldiers forced him to kneel on a concrete floor with a bag over his head. Other times they woke him from sleep or interrupted him in prayer. He said he occasionally heard detainees screaming and concluded that they were being beaten. Then one day, he recalled, "an American soldier took me blindfolded. My hands were tightly cuffed, with my ears plugged so I could not hear properly, and my mouth covered so I could only make a muffled scream. Two soldiers, one on each side, forced me to bend down, and a third pressed my face down over a table. A fourth soldier then pulled down my trousers. They rammed a stick up my rectum."

Perhaps Bush should tell it to Mullah Habibullah, a 30-year-old man from the southern province of Oruzgan, Afghanistan and Dilawar, a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver with wife and chid. Oh, he can't. According to the same Mother Jones article, as well as the Baltimomre Sun, the two men were murdered. While being interrogated by U.S. agents in Bagram, they were hung by their arms from the ceiling and beaten so severely that, according to a report by Army investigators later leaked to the Baltimore Sun, had they lived, their legs would have needed to be amputated.

Perhaps Bush can look Dilawar's wife and 2-year-old daughter in the eyes and tell them "We do not torture." I know I couldn't.