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It doesn't matter whether or not we, a substandard nation with sub-standards on everything including human rights, let US interrogators put terrorist suspects through near-death (or so it seems) experiences here; the real issue is why the Americans allegedly did that on our soil instead of theirs.

Assuming there really is, or was, a secret "black site" prison somewhere in Thailand, the American motive was a simple case of complicated conscience. On the one hand, they badly needed information that could have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of their citizens' lives; on the other hand, they believed the methods necessary to get that information from stubborn, well-trained suspects had to be unethical, immoral or even illegal.

Having an interrogation dungeon in Thailand helped ease American guilt and shielded Washington from legal exposure. And they apparently went to great lengths in interpreting local and international laws and treaties in order to make sure that if the secret was to be uncovered, they would still have enough immunity to get away with it.

Two weeks before an alleged al-Qaeda key operative was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and allegedly whisked off to the Thai "black site" prison, the US Department of Justice reportedly prepared a legal memorandum for President George W Bush. The then-president was essentially advised that he could ignore laws that prohibited the transfer of prisoners to countries that engage in torture.

Just weeks earlier, Bush had signed an executive order to exclude terror suspects from protection under the Geneva Convention. The advisory memo helped seal the fate of the al-Qaeda suspect by stating that prisoners detained outside the US were not protected by US laws banning torture or such international anti-torture treaties as that signed by former president Ronald Reagan in 1988.

Furthermore, the memo said that a legally-based US policy prohibiting the federal government from sending prisoners to countries where they may be tortured, infringed upon the president's constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. But in the same breath, the US government was also advised that, in order to fully protect its personnel from legal liability, there must not be any agreement with a destination country that a prisoner was being transferred there for the purpose of torture.

So, do you see the American ambivalence here? They only knew for sure that they must get information out of the suspect at whatever cost, but were uncertain about the rest of the whole scheme. The president, they thought, had this "constitutional" power to torture terror suspects, but he had to do it without written evidence. And no, it was not illegal, as long as it was done outside the United States.

Abu Zubaydah was in the end tortured, allegedly in Thailand, through the infamous technique known as "waterboarding", which causes victims to feel like they are drowning. Information obtained from this "enhanced interrogation" was deemed by some American officials as being fruitful, with Bush even using the results to back his call for ratification of tough techniques applied in questioning terror suspects. A relatively happy ending for the Americans, and it didn't quite matter how many constitutional principles may have been violated here in Thailand and how Bangkok might be upgraded as a terrorist target.

Being a country with lower political, ethical and moral standards, we may have deserved that. It begs the question, though, which is more worrisome - Thai authorities killing drug suspects without trial and charging writers/thinkers with subversion, or American forces coming here and exploiting the lower standards to facilitate an act that would have been immoral and illegal where they came from.

Imagine a lese majeste suspect being abducted from his home, detained without trial and beaten to near death. The Kingdom would be torn to pieces, considering that the current Thai treatment of such suspects is already called "draconian" by some Western editorials.

Again, some may argue that there is a clear line between writers seeking to criticise the Thai monarchy and militants hell-bent on killing thousands. But again, if what went on inside the alleged torture chamber is right, necessary and defensible, why didn't America do it on its own turf?

Forget Anupong. If he was lying, he was just a man reacting to a hot potato. The real issue is with those who have been doing it consciously. The ultimate question is why Washington had to go as far as the Far East in order to keep a semblance of political and moral correctness.

The American leaders may have thought they did it after considerable soul-searching, but no soul-searching is ever complete if they had to run so far away from themselves in order to do what they did.