Torture Report

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a summary of its investigation into torture committed by the Central Intelligence Agency in support of the "war on terror".  Those who carried out the crimes are condemning the report.  Anthony Romero of the ACLU suggests the best we may hope for is a set of pardons--no one would be held accountable, but formal pardons would acknowledge that crimes were committed.

Luke Brinker lists ten appalling findings:

1. The CIA misled executive branch officials, members of Congress, and the public about torture’s effectiveness.

2.  Interrogators would deprive some detainees of sleep for more than a week.

3. Detainees underwent waterboarding until they were unresponsive.

4. The CIA force-fed detainees through their rectums.

5. Interrogators threatened to harm the families and children of detainees.

6. An interrogator threatened to sodomize a detainee with a broomstick.

7. The chief of interrogations described one facility as a “dungeon.”

8. Agency interrogators forced detainees to stand on broken legs and feet.

9. Detainees experienced severe psychological problems.

10.  The CIA lied about how many detainees were in its custody.

Update (December 10):  I can barely bring myself to read much about it, but the crimes need to be reported.

Update (December 13):  Falguni Sheth reminds us that U.S. torture specifically targeted Muslims whether they were actually involved in terrorism or not.

Update (December 16):  Patrick Smith says its time to let go of the myths Americans believe about ourselves.

The myths are more than simply preposterous now. They grow dangerous in a world of rising aspirations and alternative poles of power.

We have shredded all claim to superior political, economic and social arrangements.

Update (December 22):  The New York Times calls for prosecution.

Mr. Obama has said multiple times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.

Starting a criminal investigation is not about payback; it is about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments. Because of the Senate’s report, we now know the distance officials in the executive branch went to rationalize, and conceal, the crimes they wanted to commit. The question is whether the nation will stand by and allow the perpetrators of torture to have perpetual immunity for their actions.

And speculation about the contents of a classified, internal CIA report referred to as the Panetta Review.