And yet, that is exactly what our country does, but we don't call it kidnapping. Instead, the administration has coined a clever euphemism, "extraordinary rendition". Kahled al-Masri, a German citizen, wasn't kidnapped on the border with Macedonia, he was extraordinarily rendered to Afghanistan. Osama Mustafa Hassan wasn't kidnapped by thirteen CIA agents last year in Italy, he was extraordinarily rendered to Egypt. Kidnapping is the dirty word reserved for Islamic militants in lawless war-torn countries. We, as a civilized nation, don't kidnap, we conceal our dirty work in dishonest language.

And what of torture? When practiced by America it is no longer called torture. Instead, in truly Orwellian newspeak, it is now referred to simply as an 'enhanced interrogation technique'.

The United States is a signatory to the 1949 U.N. Geneva Convention and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, ratified in 1994, both of which strictly forbid all forms of torture of prisoners of war, including mental torture. But the Bush administration created legal loopholes to get around that. First by reclassifying insurgents from prisoners of war to 'enemy combatants', then by limiting the definition of torture as actions which lead to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

My captors reclassified me as well, and I became a symbol of America's foreign policy in Iraq. Mental torture - an impending execution deadline - inflicted on the viewing public via television was the technique chosen to influence that policy. Theirs was a strong message that terrorized everyone who witnessed it, me and my family in particular. If fed through the administration's doublespeak machine, these horrifying video-taped execution threats would not be called torture, but rather an "enhanced audio visual technique".

Extraordinary rendition is a strong message as well - if you are suspected of involvement with terrorism you will be taken to a foreign country and subject to an enhanced interrogation technique". Guantanamo Bay is a strong message - if we catch you on the field of battle you will be taken to Guantanamo and subject to indefinite detention without due process, and our "enhanced interrogation technique". Abu Ghraib, another strong message, so strong in fact, that one of my democratically minded drivers in Baghdad, after seeing the images of prisoner abuse remarked, "maybe now I should fight the Americans."

Extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation technique, secret prisons, ghost prisoners; America is beginning to sound more and more like the rogue nations we are supposed to be combating.

Adopting kidnapping and torture as part of our country's legal framework in combating terrorism, as the administration has done, is not only immoral, it makes the world more dangerous place for our citizens. It isolates us from our allies in the international community and inflames anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world. Engaging in torture and kidnapping when it is convenient for our country is not 'necessary means', it is a war crime.

Setting aside the obvious moral arguments against kidnapping and torture, does it even work? You can certainly torture someone until they talk, but is what they say useful or relevant? Most military experts say it is not.

During my kidnapping ordeal, at the end of the forty-eight hour execution deadline, I was taken to make another video. At the time, I didn't know if I would be killed. Under threat, my captors demanded I make a statement; "America should stop the massacre in Najaf." I protested - these weren't my words, no one would believe me. My captors persisted, stepping up the threat. I conceded, thinking that it was not worth losing my life over. But still resisting, I managed to add, "I have been asked to read a statement..." when they turned on the camera. My captors had coerced me into reading their statement through physical threats, but it did not achieve their goal. In fact, I probably would have said just about anything, since my words were coerced and had no meaning whatsoever.

It has recently come to light that the one of the premises of the Iraq war, a purported link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, proved to be false information coerced from a man in Egyptian custody, who would say anything to avoid the 'enhanced interrogation technique'.

Perhaps the President is just mirroring public sentiment in his willingness to kidnap and torture. Torture vernacular has risen steadily with the timbre of terrorism, the kettledrum that drives this administration, reaching an apex in the popular and unabashedly pro-torture Fox television series "24", built around the exploits of the fictional Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, a special agent fighting terrorists. Every episode last season includes at least one scene where someone is tortured for information critical to saving the country in an implausible never-ending ticking-clock scenario.

In the latest series, the Secretary of Defense even tortures his own son, who, though innocent, reveals an important hidden clue, and his hidden 'chosen' homosexual identity. Jack Bauer tortures his new girlfriend's estranged husband, and even though the cuckold is given the live-wires-to-the-chest shock treatment, being innocent, he reveals nothing more than his own helplessness and humiliation. Still, he harbors no grudges against just-doing-my-job Jack.

And in case the viewer doesn't get the point - that torture is necessary - drilled into one's head like a jackhammer Jack might use to extract information, in one episode a lawyer named Weiss from a group called Amnesty Global steps in just in time to defend a terrorist cohort before it is his turn to be tortured. The Director of the fictional Los Angeles Counter Terrorism Unit for which Jack works (outside the law) bemoans the limitations imposed by the Patriot Act - his hands are tied. Limitations? Jack pulls Mr. Weiss aside to lecture him on the constitution - American blood will be on your hands if you prevent us from torturing this man. But armed with a court order, Weiss helps the terrorist go free, then drives off in a foreign made sports car. Jack Bauer circumvents the law and tortures the suspect anyway, and, after a broken finger or two, the critical information comes out just in time. The message here - softies from groups like Amnesty fill-in-the-blank are protecting terrorists, so American heroes in the model of Jack Bauer should ignore obstructionist laws, and torture away. Oh, and by the way, torture works.

While the creators of "24" were busy dreaming up chest-thumping fantasies about the ticking-clock scenario - the popular justification for torture - I lived it. My family and fiancee faced the forty-eight hour execution threat deadline heroically and humanely, working non-stop to reach out to people, not torture them. They contacted Iraqi tribal leaders, religious leaders, political leaders, friends, colleagues, Congressmen and Senators, the FBI, non-governmental organizations and even a former President, in an amazing around-the-clock grass-roots campaign that would make Jack Bauer envious. The appeals came in fast and furious from all directions, hundreds of people speaking with one voice, and my family prevailed through strength, courage and, most importantly, compassion.

As we are experiencing yet another wave of kidnappings and video-taped execution threats in Iraq, the possibilities of something other than kidnapping and torture - dialogue and building bridges that proved so effective in my situation - are all the more relevant.

But how can our country engage in dialogue and build bridges when we have acted in a morally repugnant manner. How can we condemn kidnapping and condemn torture when we do it ourselves? Torture is not an "enhanced interrogation technique", it is torture. Kidnapping is not "extraordinary rendition, it is kidnapping. This administration needs to stop fabricating euphemisms for kidnapping and torture, and come out strongly and clearly against both.

George Washington '"hoped ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality", an image of America as the light on the hill, not Dick Cheney's vision of a country that has to "go to the dark side". Cheney, one of the staunchest defenders of the torture option, earned the moniker Vice President for Torture from Stansfield Turner, the former head of the CIA. Cheney's bleak musings are so brutally frank, yet fundamentally full of obfuscation, I prefer the title Stygian Poet Laureate of the administration.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling, as Oscar Wilde wrote. So too can bad Presidential policies spring from an infinite well of sincerity. The administration may be sincere in its desire to stop the 'evil doers', but its intractable pursuit of that goal has made it lose all moral footing.

Condoleezza Rice's efforts to convince the world during her European tour two weeks ago that America does not engage in torture or kidnapping sounded more like fabrications crafted by the disinformation defense contractor, the Lincoln Group, than a truthful reflection of our foreign policy. Under pressure from Congress and possible European action, her words seem more directed at undercutting the current effort by John McCain and the US Senate to pass provisions forbidding the mistreatment of prisoners, than mollifying our European neighbors, whose basements we used to store our kidnapping victims in.

Under mounting pressure, and with endorsement now for McCain's efforts in the House, the Bush administration has finally given in and accepted the McCain-sponsored Senate provision to ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign terrorism suspects. And the American people are better off for it. But it remains to be seen if the administration's move signifies a real shift in policy, or is merely a pretense to mask more foot-dragging and legal loopholes.

Micah Garen is co-author, with Marie-Helene Carleton, of American Hostage; a memoir of a journalist kidnapped in Iraq and the remarkable battle to win his release.