It Should NEVER Have Happened

Yesterday the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. It is being commonly referred to as the CIA Torture Report. I honestly lack the words to express my disappointment in the conduct engaged in by people representing our government. I wanted to title this along the lines that we were better than that. When you read the report it is clear we were not. If there is a difference between the United States, Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and a few other nations it is this. We have come forward and openly admitted what we have done. We have gone before the world community and acknowledged our violations of treaties and our own laws. The other countries mentioned continue to deny they utilize torture. Simply acknowledging our transgressions is not enough. We must pledge to ourselves first and then to the world community- NEVER AGAIN. We have a moral ideal we did not live up to. We can and we must do better. Make no mistake I understand the context in which this was done. We were attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Over 3,000 of our citizens were murdered. We reacted. We lost sight of what separates us from almost every other country on earth. Our willingness to follow the rule of law even when others don't. Many, even now, are saying they don't care how we got the information. They don't care who we tortured or how. They don't seem to care that a government agency lied to them, to Congress and to the President. We didn't live up to our ideals. We should have and we need to. We cannot expect those who disagree with us and intend us harm to follow the rules of war when we don't. What those who are willing to tolerate and perhaps even encourage the use of torture by the United States Government fail to appreciate is the following. Torture is illegal and considered a war crime. It is banned by the Geneva Conventions, a United Nations Convention against torture ratified with the support of President Ronald Reagan and by Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113C of the U.S. Code.

The issues go deeper. CIA officials lied about who they had in custody. They lied about what they were doing. They destroyed evidence. They tortured two of their own informants. At least 20% of those held were held wrongfully. The actions were called enhanced interrogation techniques. They were in fact torture. The acts ultimately lead to zero actionable intelligence. The information we received prior to the use of torture proved to be sufficient to capture Osama bin Laden and foil terror plots. Why is that? I don't know how you would react if you were tortured but I can tell you what I would do. I would tell you anything to get you to stop. I would make up anything you wanted to hear. Telling the truth doesn't get torture to stop because they always think you know more. So you just keep talking. Say whatever it takes to get them to stop. The United States Senate has one resident expert on torture. One Senator knows first hand how torture works and the toll it takes on the person being tortured. Senator McCain was tortured as a prisoner of war. He has repeatedly spoke out condemning the use of torture. His fellow senators need to listen to his comments. Set their opinions to the side and listen to someone who know torture on a personal level.

The bottom line for me is simple. We entered into treaties and signed the Geneva Conventions which outlaw torture. It should NEVER be a practice used by any representative of the United States Government. There is never a time or circumstance when the use of torture is appropriate. We weren't better than that, we should have been. We lost sight of our moral compass. We need to reclaim the high moral ground and lead the world correctly not as a torturing bully.