Torture is morally repugnant.

This principle is obvious to almost anyone, although it seems some Texans have a bit of trouble with it.

Now a new practice is on the radar of the press: the practice of “extraordinary rendition.” Although this sounds like code for a really amazing “American Idol” performance, it is actually a cryptic euphemism for shipping prisoners to foreign countries for interrogation.

The problem with this practice is that the specific countries to which prisoners are being sent — places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan and Syria — are all countries that regularly practice torture. The CIA claims that its specific intent is not to have these prisoners tortured and that those nations’ governments assure it of that.

Tell that to Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian captured on his way back to Canada from the United States. Arar claims to have been tortured regularly in the Syrian prison to which he was sent by U.S. officials. He speaks of being whipped with a two-inch thick electrical cable, hit, kicked and threatened with even more serious forms of torture. He was held in Syria for a year before finally being released. Syria reportedly believes he is innocent of any terrorist links.

Arar is among hundreds of suspects who have been deemed worth of extraordinary rendition since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This outsourcing of torture has certainly damaged our reputation in the Middle East, although one has to wonder how much lower that can go after Abu Ghraib and the revelation of even more widespread torture. This tactic also has the potential of further unraveling the Geneva Conventions.

Why does this matter?

It matters because those conventions protect our soldiers too. Our many different tortured interpretations of convention rules will hurt our soldiers in the long run. That’s not supporting our troops.

Beyond this, our reliance on state sponsors of torture is disturbing in a geo-strategic sense. With the new foreign policy of using force to encourage democracy, any reliance on foes of freedom hurts our credibility in this arena. Arar’s Syria is a prime example of this — its continued oppression of Lebanon has been an impediment to another potentially free state in the region.

The most fundamental reason to oppose the practice is because torture is wrong. It is immoral and ineffective. Americans know that. The administration ought to, as well.

If the U.S. government is truly dedicated to freedom and opposed to torture, it will stop the practice of extraordinary rendition now.