Bob Woodward is reporting — and since it involves a direct, on-the-record quote, it makes it hard to argue — that, yes, the United States does torture…
The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."
"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
There are all sorts of arguments about torture. They include whether it's moral or whether it alienates useful allies or whether it ever yields useful information…or yields enough to offset the obvious downsides. I think all those questions lead to the conclusion that it's wrong in every sense of the word for us to engage in such practices. And that's without even adding to the pile that, as you'll note from the last sentence above, it removes our ability to prosecute folks who maybe oughta be prosecuted. Later in the same article, Crawford says, "He's a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don't charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, 'Let him go.'"
So we can't prosecute him and we can't let him go. Wonderful.