torture, soviet-style

The Post editors flag a charming fact -- that the so-called "alternative methods" of interrogating prisoners approved by the de facto Bush Administration were based on what the Pentagon feared our troops would suffer at Soviet hands.

We taught our troops how to resist torture, for fear they would reveal information if captured by Soviets or other bad guys that do not observe the Geneva Conventions. And now we've used that knowledge to come up with the "alternative methods."

Remember -- those methods are techniques the US and other civilized nations have long denounced accurately as torture. And it doesn't even WORK -- as the Post notes in the case of bad information tortured out of two top Al Qaeda prisoners.

Torture is wrong. It's beneath a democratic society. It doesn't work. Unfortunately, our rulers just don't care. And don't just dismiss it because there's nothing to say that this or a similar future regime won't find reason to employ it on domestic enemies, too. All in the cause of keeping us "safe."