Senate Report: Torture was Brutal and Ineffective

 Today the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by Senator Dianne Feinstein released the unclassified version of its report on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" used during the Bush Administration.  A detailed synopsis of the more brutal methods can be found here.  Suffice it to say some of the techniques employed killed detainees and many would constitute torture by the definitions of the Geneva Convention, of which the United States is a signatory.  The report also finds that CIA lied to Congress about the methods employed and the effectiveness of the intelligence obtained.  The report's investigation determined that no important actionable intelligence was garnered by the use of these barbaric practices, and that indeed much misinformation was "fabricated" by detainees in their efforts to make the agony stop.  One of President Obama's first acts after his inauguration in 2009 was to ban this barbarism. 

 Senate majority leader Harry Reid weighed in to back the report. “Today, for the first time, the American people are going to learn the full truth about torture that took place under the CIA during the Bush administration,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “The only way our country can put this episode in the past is to confront what happened.”  "Not only is torture wrong but it doesn’t work,” said Reid. He said torture “got us nothing except a bad name.”

Most Republicans, including former President George W. Bush, criticized the report, but Senator John McCain, a victim of torture himself as a prisoner in Vietnam, had this to say: "What might cause a surprise not just to our enemies, but to many Americans is how little these practices did to aid our efforts to bring 9/11 culprits to justice and to find and prevent terrorist attacks today and tomorrow. That could be a real surprise since it contradicts the many assurances provided by intelligence officials on the record and in private that enhanced interrogation techniques were indispensable in the war against terrorism." (Source)

I don't always agree with Sen. McCain on many things, but on this issue he has always had it right.  He well encapsulated the importance of a moral stance with this statement: "But in the end, torture's failure to serve its intended purpose isn't the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said and will always maintain that this question isn't about our enemies, it's about us. It's about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be." (Source)