Do the Americans torture or not?

According to the respected London Guardian, the United States operated and may continue to rely on "floating prisons" to accommodate "enemy combatants" in the open-ended war on terrorism.

Even worse, the purpose of these facilities was to conceal actual "numbers and whereabouts of detainees" and, more important, to sidestep any and all obligations under international law.

Coming after notorious revelations from Bagram prison in Afghanistan to the scandals of Abu Ghraib in Iraq to the legal hairsplitting in Guantanamo Bay to secret rendition flights, why are prisoners being held without trial, and are they still subject to torture despite denials to the contrary?

Let it be clear that no reasonable person can condone any act of terrorism anywhere. Those who practise violence cannot and should not expect understanding from anyone.

Our concerns, therefore, are not that terrorists answer for their dastardly acts but on the contrary, with our responses to such actions. In fact, it is about our willingness to suspend painstakingly devised laws, whose aim is to protect those who believe in practising freedom.

To read that foreign land prisons, and now ships cruising in international waters, were used to detain dangerous criminals precisely to avoid trials says a lot about those who pretend to look after our welfare.

According to human rights groups, since 2006 as many as 200 individuals were held on warships, which implied that these were not isolated cases.

It may be worth recalling that President George W. Bush declared that keeping prisoners in overseas facilities, under so-called "extraordinary rendition situations", ended a few years ago.

On September 6 2006, Bush recognised the existence of several "black sites", where terrorist suspects were subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques". He assured his listeners that all "secret prisons [were] now empty", although he did not mention the existence of ships, which would have contradicted his intentions.

Remarkably, and while senior American officials recognised that a few detainees were placed on ships "for a few days" at the height of the Afghanistan campaign, it was a prisoner released from Guantanamo Bay who revealed the extent of the practice.

He described "a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship" and how the latter was "beaten even more severely than in Guantanamo", which were denied by a US Navy spokesman who also disavowed the torture practice.

Impossible

While it is truly impossible to know the numbers of prisoners that American forces arrested since 2001, and the conditions of their incarcerations, there are at least 21,000 still being held in Iraq alone.

According to military authorities in Baghdad, the total detainee population peaked at 25,600 in October 2007, a figure that went down to 21,680 in late May 2008.

Regrettably, less than 15 per cent of these individuals appeared before a court of law to answer for their crimes, and about 1,500, or roughly 5 per cent were in custody for at least three years. Although most detainees were freed after an average 333-days detention, many were held under dubious circumstances.

Similar situations existed in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. For Washington, these individuals were not "prisoners of war" and it was important not to rely on the semi-independent judiciary branch to free them.

Rather, they were die-hard "enemy combatants" who were in custody because they were the worse of the worst. Strangely, however, hundreds of these "enemy combatants" were released without facing any charges, which was confusing to say the least.

By refusing to throw the legal book at them, and by failing to produce solid evidence to win easy verdicts against terrorists, the Bush Administration missed golden opportunities.

The United States cannot accommodate lawlessness for long. Because it is a society founded on law, even if the latter is temporarily in abeyance, its institutions function best when individuals reaffirm their commitments to the Constitution.

The latter identifies, recognises and defends basic principles, and allocates both rights and responsibilities. In fact, the very meaning of American democracy, which officials must defend when they take an oath to uphold the values contained in the sacred document, can only be preserved by upholding the law.

Depending on who is elected President of the US in November, some of the above listed reprehensible practices may come to an end, but we should not wait that long to restore our liberty.

Simply stated, no one should be held without trial, and no one should endure beatings, torture, or ritual humiliation. Indeed, we must not lose sight of our claim to superior morality by denying even the most dangerous criminals their day in court, since our very democracy is at stake.

It is time to restore moral leadership by standing up for the law not only because that will make us safer but because we will reaffirm our values.

Lest one is accused of looking through rose coloured glasses, and pretend that the US is the only beacon of civilisation, my own concern is not with terrorists.

To reiterate, when anyone resorts to violence, they must be held accountable. Democratic governments, on the other hand, cannot but operate within the law and substituting secret land jails to ships in international waters is unbecoming.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques" are still torture, on land or ships. Such practices tarnish our very character.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.