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Double standards: How our lawlessness strengthens our enemies
We have failed to even investigate torturers, yet we have prosecuted and imprisoned millions for lesser offenses. And we allow mass murderers the benefit of constitutional rights that we deny detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Until policymakers examine and fix these double standards, they will continue to undermine our foreign policy, as well as our domestic criminal justice system.
We now know that the Bush Administration's torture policies proved horrendously counterproductive, in more ways than one: they eroded our allies' trust, undermined the ability of our non-state supporters to credibly defend our goodwill, generated bad intelligence in the form of forced -- and predictably false -- confessions, and undermined the morale of the professional interrogators who resisted their illegal (and idiotic) orders.
Worse yet, torture drove recruits into the arms of our enemies. According to veteran interrogators from multiple armed services, as well as the FBI, the number one reason militants flocked to Iraq was U.S. torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Force Base, CIA black sites, and the various foreign countries to which we continue to outsource torture through the extraordinary rendition program.