Robert Fisk, veteran correspondent for the Independent, speaks with Democracy Now!

Some excerpts:

AMY GOODMAN: And the Vice President of the United States now asking for an exemption for C.I.A. officers, for C.I.A. agents engaged in torture – of Republican Senator McCain, who was a tortured P.O.W. in Vietnam.

ROBERT FISK: Well, this, obviously – this assumes that it's rather more easy to be tortured by the C.I.A. than by the military or that the C.I.A. find it rather more easy to torture, which I'm sure they do. Well, they could take some lessons from the K.G.B., as well, who are also becoming our friends now since the Soviet Union collapsed. Look, at the end of the day, you've got to realize that even if we don't do the tortures, we are using this system, laughingly known as “rendition,” where we put would-be torture victims onto an airplane and send them back to a country where they will be tortured, but we won't actually put the electricity onto their genitals or their penis in order to make them scream with pain.

These aircraft are flying through Europe. In fact, they're flying through Shannon Airport. I was giving a lecture in Ireland the other day, and I said, “Why don't the Irish police go onboard these aircraft and unshackle these men and take them off in the interest of law and order?”

Because what we've got to now with the torture is that we are becoming the criminals. We are the criminals now. And if we're going to behave the same way as the Taliban would behave, and they would not hesitate to put electricity onto people's bodies for torture, then the war is over. It's finished. We have no further moral cause to fight for.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you make of the Washington Post exposing a secret C.I.A. prison in Eastern Europe, and yet complying with the Pentagon’s request?

ROBERT FISK: Yes, but they wouldn't say where they were, would they? In fact, the prisons are about 100 miles from Warsaw in Poland and also quite a considerable way from Bucharest, but in Romania. It was very amusing to find that the Washington Post would not say that Poland and Romania were the two countries involved, and most American journalists have fought shy of saying that. But Poland and Romania are the two democracies where these people are taken for torture by the C.I.A.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you make of them complying with the Pentagon request not to name the countries?

ROBERT FISK: Well, this is the same problem that's existed all along with American journalism. And that is this osmotic, parasitic relationship between the press or journalists, in general, and power, where to criticize your country's foreign policy, especially when it's war, is seen as a form of unpatriotic behavior and thus of potential subversion. Add to this the sort of American school of journalism, where everyone has to have 50% of each story, each side, which is ridiculous. The victims should be the subject of the story if we have any kind of compassion at all as human beings. When we reach this stage, I think, you know, journalism ceases to perform its function.

What we should be doing is challenging authority, which is what Helen was trying to do in that clip we just saw from the White House press conference. But if you want to see the normal White House press conference, you'll quickly see the relationship between the journalist and the President. It will be “Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President!” And then George W. Bush will say, “John,” “Amy,” “Bob,” whoever it might be, right? That is the relationship that exists now, and it should be much more combative. You know, Amira Hass, the very fine Israeli journalist, a friend of mine, we were discussing the purpose of being a foreign correspondent about two years or so ago, and I was going on about, you know, “We write the first pages of history,” in my Brit way. And she said, “No, Robert, our job is to monitor the centers of power.” And we don't do that.