Press: Will terrorism rewrite the laws of war?

(George Washington founded the 225-year U.S. tradition of humane treatment of wartime prisoners. Since 9/11, George Bush has done as much as terrorism to unravel it.)

(NPR) To take advantage of this apparent loophole, one of a series of memos written by Bush administration officials after the Sept. 11 attacks offered possible defenses against criminal charges, in part, by narrowing the definition of torture. Justice Department attorney Jay Bybee's 2002 memo advised that "certain acts may be cruel, inhuman or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within (the law's) proscription against torture," which he wrote "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."