Torture is un-American
August 25, 2009
With the economy still sputtering, unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and health care reform under attack, it's little wonder President Barack Obama isn't eager for a distracting debate over the Bush administration's policy on torture to extract information from suspected terrorists. But a report released Monday revealing new details of the abuses carried out by the agency shows why Mr.
Obama will have to tackle the subject. Indeed, within hours of the report's release, the Justice Department announced a criminal probe of alleged detainee abuses, and the White House said it will assume direct control of interrogations of terror suspects.
The previously classified report - the result of a 2004 investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general into allegations of illegal mistreatment of detainees at the agency's secret prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan - cited
instances in which interrogators threatened detainees with guns and electric drills, conducted mock executions to make suspects believe they were about to be executed and told prisoners their families would be targeted for death if they refused to cooperate. One interrogator reportedly threatened to rape a prisoner's mother in front of him if he didn't answer questions...................
No one wants to see the government paralyzed by the controversy likely to erupt if criminal charges are brought against former high-ranking agency officials and others who authorized or condoned the illegal abuses outlined in the inspector general's report. But
the nation also needs to reassert vigorously the principle that in a democracy, no one is above the law.
Until there is a full accounting of what went wrong, there's no assurance it won't happen again - or that future crimes committed in Americans' names won't also just be swept under the rug as a matter of political expediency. more:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.cia25aug25,0,6595262.story
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