A non-governmental, bipartisan task force recently completed a two-year investigation into the U.S. government's treatment of 9/11 detainees, concluding indisputably that the United States government engaged in illegal torture.

By letting American officials, lawyers and interrogators get away with torture - and indeed, murder - the United States sacrifices any right to scold or punish other countries for their human rights violations.

As a nation founded on religious and moral values, we cannot begin to move past the shameful use of torture until we ensure that U.S. government-sponsored torture never occurs again. Justifications for the use of torture impede us from this important task.

It is disappointing to those who believed Obama's election marked the beginning of a reckoning with America's descent into torture. Rather than drawing a bead on impunity, the president has lowered his bow and let it go.

John McCain's latest war gospel hangs an alarming tale. The rule of law has been dethroned and the president has been endowed with absolute power as the American Empire has eclipsed the American Republic.

While our government does not hesitate to criticize other countries for their human rights violations, it has been derelict in complying with our own human rights commitments.

Dick Cheney may like to call those interrogations "enhanced," but in everyday parlance they're what the DOJ is implicitly acknowledging: tortured.

Sadly, our celebrity-obsessed world is unlikely to pay much attention to the International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture, as the death of Michael Jackson dominates headlines.

At a Q&A with Stanford students, Condoleezza Rice was extremely uncomfortable, defensive and nervous. She was rude to the first student, interrupted him and yelled at him.

This is why I say these people don't understand the whole concept behind America. In our system of government, the president is not supposed to be above the law.

Imagine after six and a half years of this imprisonment -- in which, unlike convicted criminals on the US mainland, you have never been charged or tried, and have not been allowed a single visit from your loved ones.