Graham joined two other Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and John Warner of Virginia, last week as the only GOP members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to defy the president by approving an amendment that would ban abusive CIA interrogation techniques and make it easier for terrorism suspects to defend themselves in court.

Bush made a rare visit to Capitol Hill last week to seek support in changing the law because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the administration could not use secret military tribunals to prosecute prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. The more compliant House majority has advanced the Bush-backed bill, although some members say it's too early to say what the final version will contain.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also served as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an impassioned plea to McCain, himself a former prisoner of war during the Vietnam era, not to approve Bush's bill. He wrote that, if approved, the changes would undercut the struggle against terrorism abroad and expose captured U.S. troops to abusive treatment.

The president maintains the CIA doesn't condone torture, but the techniques employed by the CIA include practices such as hypothermia and simulated drowning, which is called "waterboarding," that would be considered illegal under international law, including the Geneva Conventions, which govern treatment of captured soldiers.

Terrorists, by definition, are not soldiers, nor is the "war on terrorism" a conventional war -- an argument that the administration repeatedly invokes to justify practices that U.S. and international law prohibit. Abusive treatment of prisoners, many of whom later were released without being charged, and secret CIA prisons overseas have cost this country much of the good will and empathy it enjoyed before the invasion of Iraq.

Secret trials or trying people without letting them see the evidence should be abhorrent to every American who appreciates our system of justice.

We are grateful to members of Congress, such as Sen. Graham, who understand why invoking the "war on terror" is not reason to jettison tenets of our democracy.

IN SUMMARY
Sen. Graham, a lawyer and a soldier, stands fast for basic American principles.