In the past I have mocked the Americans' so-called torture techniques as being amateurish. Then I read this.

It seems that one of my generals, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, was captured a couple of years ago. His interrogators worked him over pretty thoroughly with beatings but he refused to cooperate.

So on the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, two Americans soldiers stuffed him in a sleeping bag, bound it up with electrical cord, and beat him yet again.

Mowhoush ended up dying in that sleeping bag. The Americans initially said he died of natural causes, but now the truth has finally come out.

In the past, Rumsfeld and other Bush officials have justified the harsh questioning of prisoners by arguing that they are not soldiers, but terrorists and thugs and therefore exempt from the protections of the Geneva accords. Yet here we have someone who is clearly a top military officer with the enemy, and he was literally beaten to death! If my people had captured a top US general and subjected him to the same brutal treatment, and he had ended up dead, what do you suppose would be Bush's reaction?

Right. He'd be talking it up as further evidence of the savagery and brutality of the evildoers who hate freedom and democracy.

Anyway, I have to admit that I'm impressed. Stuffed in a sleeping bag and bound with electrical cable, eh? Very impressive.

I'll have to add that one to my own repertoire.