9/11 Changed Everything

Including, I guess, the definition of "binding law":

UPDATE V: Just compare Alicia Shepard's justification for why NPR calls Gambia's tactics "torture" but not America's -- they do it to inflict pain whereas we (supposedly) did it to extract information -- to the definition of "torture" in the Convention Against Torture, to which the U.S. has been a siganatory since 1988:

Part I, Article I: For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

The entire civilized world has long defined "torture" to include tactics used to obtain information. By virtue of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, that definition is binding law ("supreme law") in the U.S. But to NPR's Ombdusman, it's not "torture" if they are simply -- as she put it -- "tactics used to get information." Those are the depths to which NPR is willing to sink in order to twist language and protect the Bush administration and the U.S. Government.