Terrorists welcome legal clarity in Senate/White House torture compromise

In a move to "clarify" the legal issues governing abuse of prisoners, Senate Republicans and the George W. Bush White House have announced a compromise. Many abuses will now be considered legal, and because they were not legal before anyone who engaged in them in the past 10 years will be considered to have acted within the law.

The new bill also recognized that because it was not clear before this bill that illegal acts were in fact illegal because they weren't specifically described as such, all illegal acts of abuse in the past, including those now clearly described as illegal, will be considered to have been legal.

"In the war against terrorism," said Senate majority leader Bill Frist, "our hands have been tied by qualms about torture. If it protects the American people, we're saying no question it's OK."

Terrorists on the other side of the battle also welcomed the compromise.

"We now know what is acceptable in the eyes of the law," said a spokesman for Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda Iraq. "We look forward to abusing our prisoners within these new guidelines to more effectively protect our people."