We crucify them. We drill holes in flesh. We throw them to the lions:

Two Iraqi men who were arrested in Iraq in 2003 but never charged with crimes say that U.S. troops put them in a cage with lions, pretended to execute them in a firing line and humiliated them during interrogations at multiple detention facilities.

Sherzad Khalid, 35, and Thahe Sabber, 37, say they were brutally beaten over several months at U.S. facilities such as Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib prison and another detention facility at the Baghdad airport. They said the abuse occurred when they were unable to tell U.S. troops where Saddam Hussein was hiding and did not know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Both are businessmen who were arrested in a July 17, 2003, raid in Baghdad while Khalid, of Kurdistan, was visiting friends. Both said they were supporters of the U.S. invasion.

The two men are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top military commanders in Iraq. The suit contends that U.S. policies during the war allowed abuse and torture. Both men say that they were tortured and degraded for months before they were released.

"That was a terrifying period for me," Khalid said through an interpreter yesterday, slowly recounting being shoved into a lion’s cage at one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad three times before soldiers lined him up for a mock execution. "I was wondering if it could be real that the American army would act this way."

It’s common wisdom that this administration has, from the outset, and right up to the present, made a habit of accusing others of what it is guilty of. I’ve always thought of that as just an effective technique — put your opposition on the defense, so that, at best, no one notices what you’re doing, and, at worst, people excuse your crimes because the other side supposedly does it too.

But when self-described Christians are choosing to replicate the history of their faith in reverse, casting themselves in the villains’ place, while somehow still claiming the innocence of holy victims, it looks more like pathology than political spin. They remind me of Alex in A Clockwork Orange, aroused by Christian iconography, fantasizing himself as a Roman soldier. Then throw in something too twisted for Alex –fantasizing himself, simultaneously, as a martyr.

Sick. Just sick, these Clockwork Christians.

I don’t know yet, if this story about the lions is really true. It sounds so insane that I’m reluctant to believe it. But I’m almost as reluctant to believe we have a vice president whose primary job at the moment is torturers’ p.r. man. And the Pentagon disclaimer — "it should not surprise anyone that detainees would make false allegations against their captors." — doesn’t carry much weight given how often categorically denied abuses have turned out to be true. Or, for that matter, how many "terrorists" have turned out to be nothing of the kind.

These "detainees," recall, were innocent — not an uncommon trait for detainees — and even supported the U.S. invasion. (I think we can assume the past tense is required here.) Frankly, I think the Pentagon has more reason to lie than they do. In fact, I tend to place a lot of faith in the word of someone who makes a statement like this:

"They just wanted to humiliate us in any shape or form they could," Sabber said. "I wish I knew why. I was sure, however, that their actions were not the same as the values and morals of the American people."

Early in Christian history, there were many who faced the same ordeal as Mr. Sabber, and, following the example of their Savior, responded with similar generosity of spirit. Forgive them, Father….

I’m sitting here in awe of Muslims, cast by "Christians" into the role of martyrs, responding in a way that reflects what, to me, is the essence of Christianity. And the essence of Islam, too, I’m sure. And every other faith. And every non-religious ethical tradition worthy of the name. It’s a reminder of how little the boundaries between religions, and between religious and secular, really matter in comparison to the difference between those who believe in the power of love to overcome evil, and those who not only meet evil with evil, but come to see it as their noblest aspiration.

Not to mention a turn on.

I’m afraid we don’t deserve that generosity:

According to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, 44 percent of the public thinks torture is often or sometimes justified as a way to obtain important information, while 51 percent say it is rarely or never justified. A clear majority—58 percent—would support torture to thwart a terrorist attack, but asked if they would still support torture if that made it more likely enemies would use it against Americans, 57 percent said no.

I’m shocked that we can barely eek out a majority of Americans against torture only by including those who think it’s "rarely" justified. I’m even more shocked though, by the casual ignorance revealed by this poll, as if this were still a theoretical issue for us. There’s an ugly little chunk in there of people who are against torture unless someone comes up with a half-baked excuse. Like a half-baked chicken,  a half-baked excuse still oozes blood. I’d like to believe Dick Cheney is simply a psychopath. I don’t want to believe he’s just an ordinary American, but as much as people may dislike him, it looks like, on this subject, they agree with him.

We have work to do.

I haven’t written anything the past few days not only because I was busy, but also because I was overwhelmed by the few things I did make time to read. Katherine and hilzoy, at Obsidian Wings, have been doing spectacular work fighting the noxious Graham amendment, which would — it now seems all too literally — throw innocent people to the lions. Me, I felt like I couldn’t quite wrap my meager brain around the complexities of it. It looks like the latest news is better than it might have been but worse than we have a right to expect — a compromise holding on to a few rights that Graham would have taken away, but losing others. I don’t entirely understand what that will mean in practice. The effort to make sense of it wears me down.

What lifts me up again is an innocent Iraqi prisoner’s faith that Americans are better than this, his ability to meet our brutality with love. I can’t always follow the complex twists and turns of this administration’s attempts to inflict evil. But I know that as important as it is to understand the machinations, and fight each one in turn, it is equally important to take to heart the love, the faith in our essential goodness, that we were offered. We can only win by trying to live up to the enormity of that generosity.