Bush administration memos on prisoner treatment reveal understandable frustration in dealing with a borderless war waged against enemies who sneer at the rules. The authors grapple with international agreements on torture and wonder whether they apply to a war on terrorism.

Behind the legal jargon and parsing of definitions, a clear sense emerges that when dealing with terrorists the authors think the United States should reconsider restrictions on torture. After the recent beheadings of civilians in Iraq, it’s tempting to ditch traditional practices and ratchet up the pain.

Press leaks of these secret memos and the subsequent release of some of them by the White House have set off a national debate. That’s a positive development.

If the Geneva Conventions are considered “quaint,” as White House counsel Alberto Gonzales described them, then the administration should have to make a public case for changing a long-standing policy of compliance. If the president has the right to sweep aside such international accords because they may interfere with his ability to wage war, the administration should have to show that such a right is grounded in the Constitution. President Bush noted in one of the memos that he accepts that conclusion but won’t invoke this purported right for the time being.

Before he does, he should consider the following:

“ Constitutional scholars of all political stripes are troubled by the prospect of a president jumping in and out of treaties without consultation and consent from Congress and international bodies. And there’s no stopping a prosecutor from another country from pursuing war-crimes charges against U.S. citizens.

“ Such a move would undermine all kinds of international agreements – past, present and future – and not just those related to torture. The United States could no longer be trusted to uphold its commitments, nor could we trust others to uphold theirs.

“ There’s no certainty that torture would be productive. Intelligence experts have long held that torture is an unreliable method for extracting information. The New York Times recently interviewed intelligence officials at Guantanamo Bay, where Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners are held, and found that brutish interrogation methods haven’t yielded much useful information.

“ Engaging in torture helps define the United States, and not in a flattering way. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal, where abuse was committed against a country’s people (as opposed to terrorists), was a huge setback to the United States’ credibility in that region. It has also become a recruiting tool for terrorists and insurgents. The United States will not be seen as a beacon of human rights when it is violating torture conventions.

It is this last point that is of paramount importance. The United States must resist the temptation to torture – and punish those who have given in – if it is to win the hearts and minds of reasonable people around the world. The president is right when he says we are in a war of ideology, but it is a war that is everlasting and viewed through various cultural prisms. We have to show that we are indeed a special nation with lofty values, not just a lighter side of evil.