You learn something new every day

Too bad a lot of the time, it sucks this hard:

• Egypt has defended a decision to renew "emergency" laws by referring to US anti-terror legislation
• Malaysia justifies detention without trial by invoking Guant  ·namo
• Russia cites Abu Ghraib to blame abuse in Chechnya solely on low-ranking soldiers.

But there are few signs in Washington of a change of approach. The White House secretly persuaded Congress to overturn legislation passed last month by a 96-2 Senate vote that would have imposed restrictions on extreme interrogation methods, the New York Times reported yesterday.

Here's more on that last one:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - At the urging of the White House, Congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, Congressional officials say.

The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most obscure arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the Central Intelligence Agency's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.

The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.

But in intense closed-door negotiations, Congressional officials said, four senior members from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition.

Um... this is not a good thing. It's not a good thing when three incredibly repressive regimes cite our worst policies as examples to follow. They're supposed to be saying, "You know, that freedom of speech thing is pretty cool!" "Due process... maybe we should try it! It's so crazy, it just might work!" Not, "You call that torture? You're PUSSIES compared to the Americans!"