I guess that we can talk in terms of the US Gulag ---the chain of black sites (airports, military bases, and former compounds or prisons of the old Soviet Gulag) that facilitate illegal detentions, kidnappings (called "extraordinary renditions"), and are used for the torture and abuse of various terror suspects.

Nick Andrson

We don't hear much about this from the Howard Government. I guess as a faithful ally we are expected to trust that America does not allow rights abuses; or that evidence obtained under torture saves lives. No doubt they would say would distance Canberra from the controversy over claims that terror suspects subject to "rendition" by the United States may have been tortured in third countries. I wonder when the Australian High Court will rule on evidence extracted under torture?

Isn't the doctrine of 'the ends justify the means' the philosophy of the imperial presidency? Isn't the US engaged in achieving democracy in Iraq through force of arms. Isn't US policy to impose its will on Iraq? What we have is the possibility of a total collapse in Iraq; a disaster of a civil war or a regional guerrilla war caused by the long-term heavy US troop presence as an occupying force. The recent Bush rhetoric about victory being on the horizon, that the US mission in Iraq is to win the war, and that US troops will return home when that mission is complete has littel connection with reality.