NYT: "Our Friends, the Torturers"

Bob Herbert writes:

Syria is led by a gangster regime that has, among other things, sponsored terrorism, aided the insurgency in Iraq and engaged in torture. So here's the question. If Syria is such a bad actor - and it is - why would the Bush administration seize a Canadian citizen at Kennedy Airport in New York, put him on an executive jet, fly him in shackles to the Middle East and then hand him over to the Syrians, who promptly tortured him?

The administration is trying to have it both ways in its so-called war on terror. It claims to be fighting for freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and it condemns barbaric behavior whenever it is committed by someone else. At the same time, it is engaged in its own barbaric behavior, while going out of its way to keep that behavior concealed from the American public and the world at large.

Is it possible to bring about peace by waging war? Is it wise to smother a brush fire with rags and gasoline? Can a freer world be created by squashing freedom? Can the methods of thugs be used to uphold the rule of law?

At home and abroad, the Bush administration has given the finger to human rights, has disdained all attempts to pass crucial information on to the public, and has in general conducted itself with an air of authoritarianism and aloofness that is nothing short of breathtaking.

Our friends in Europe and around the world see this plainly... and so do our enemies. Why is it that here in the "homeland" so few seem to recognize the dangerous hypocrisy in the Bush administration's policies?