Some Senators Finally Willing To Call CIA's Torture Program 'Torture'

[unhappycamper]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140402/07200926776/some-senators-finally-willing-to-call-cias-torture-program-torture.shtml

Some Senators Finally Willing To Call CIA's Torture Program 'Torture'
from the good-for-them dept
by Mike Masnick
Wed, Apr 2nd 2014 1:02pm

We've been writing quite a bit about the supposedly devastating $40 million, 6,300 page Senate report that exposes the CIA torture program for being useless -- and (perhaps more importantly) describing in detail how the CIA lied about it to everyone, including Congress. There's been something of an ongoing fight about declassifying the document, with the general thinking being that the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee would likely support declassification, but the Republicans would not. But, as we'd pointed out, despite Intelligence Committee boss Senator Dianne Feinstein's condemnations of the CIA concerning the report, she still couldn't must up the courage to admit that what the CIA was doing was "torture." Instead, it was always the "detention and interrogation program." But, anyone who's looked at it knows exactly what it was: a torture program, almost certainly in violation of the Geneva conventions.

So it's great to see that a Republican Senator (remember, they were supposedly against declassification), Susan Collins, (along with Independent Senator Angus King) not only come out in favor of declassification but to directly call it torture:

We remain strongly opposed to the use of torture, believing that it is fundamentally contrary to American values. While we have some concerns about the process for developing the report, its findings lead us to conclude that some detainees were subjected to techniques that constituted torture. This inhumane and brutal treatment never should have occurred. Further, the report raises serious concerns about the CIA’s management of this program.

(....}

Torture is wrong, and we must make sure that the misconduct and the grave errors made in the CIA’s detention and interrogation program never happen again.