Myth has supplanted reality when it comes to the abuse of prisoners by the United States government.

Pictures of detainees being tortured in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison shocked the world. But the official line has been – and remains – that the abuse was the work of just a few soldiers, who acted inappropriately, but on their own.

As more and more evidence emerges, however, it’s clear that the treatment of prisoners that outraged the world and many Americans was part of a systematic effort. It was not isolated, it was not born in the minds of a few renegade soldiers and it was not a mistake made by a few undisciplined reservists. It was policy, directed and approved by the highest levels of the United States government.

A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered thousands of documents detailing the extent that torture and abuse have been used against detainees captured as part of the war on terror. They also reveal that government officials knew it was happening.

Evidence now shows that prisoners were being abused at the military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, both before and after the revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib in 2003. FBI agents, sent to work at Guantanamo, reported to their superiors cases of abuse by the military. The list of abuses is appalling: beatings, chokings, humiliation, and sleep and food depravation. It was so bad that the agents refused to participate.

But the abuse isn’t limited to Guantanamo. Other soldiers serving in Iraq set up mock executions, burned detainees with chemicals and forced them into sexual encounters that were then used for blackmail. Some were beaten to death. Abuse occurred over a three-year period, both before and after the world learned of Abu Ghraib.

We know what argument is coming. All’s fair in war. The United States was attacked, and if it takes breaking a few rules to secure the country, so be it. But with each act of abuse or torture, we become less a beacon of hope and democracy in the world and more like the brutal enemies we are fighting. For every war crime that goes unpunished, every suspicious death of a prisoner that isn’t investigated, the United States loses more of the moral high ground. Additionally, there’s no evidence that prisoners who are tortured or abused provide better information than those who aren’t.

As documents uncovered by the ACLU show, many of the interrogators in Guantanamo believed they were acting with the blessings of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The administration has fought vigorously to hide the ugly facts about prisoner abuse. But the secret has been revealed.

The White House and Congress have promised to investigate. It’s clear neither is interested in the truth or in stopping the abuse of detainees. That cannot be allowed to stand.