A Legacy of Torture

Last week President Bush damaged America’s reputation – perhaps irreparably – by vetoing legislation to prevent the Central Intelligence Agency from
using "waterboarding" and other "coercive interrogation" techniques.
These include beatings and sexual abuse, mock executions, withholding
of food and water, and menacing by dogs. The law would have forced the
CIA to use only army-approved techniques. The move confirmed President Bush’s legacy as "the torture president".

Then the US State Department yesterday removed China from the list of worst human rights violators in its  Human Rights Report for 2007. 

Barbara Lochbihler, the head of Amnesty International in Germany, sees a connection in the two events in her commentary in Die Tageszeitung.  You can read my translation of her op/ed piece in Watching America.