A Necessary Catharsis

The battle was political, bureaucratic and, indeed, moral. Five years after launching its investigations and two years after Congress authorized them, the American Senate Intelligence Committee has finally released the summary of a 6,000-page report, which sheds light on a dark chapter of American democracy: the torture carried out by the CIA as part of the fight against terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

It was a difficult undertaking, however. The America of Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld still believes that forceful interrogation techniques are needed to protect the United States from evil. It doesn’t even seem to be bothered by the fact that the Islamic State jihadi group used a similar technique, waterboarding, on an American journalist, James Foley, by way of reprisal before he was beheaded.

The Democratic President Barack Obama, who put a stop to these illegal practices as soon as he arrived at the White House in 2009, has repeatedly emphasized the fact. The torture and the continuance of the prison at Guantanamo, which remains a legal black hole for many detainees, are damaging the United States’ reputation around the world.

Although a rationalist, Barack Obama dragged his feet for a long time before supporting the publication of a report that reveals the dark marks, like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, in the history of a democracy that went astray in its fight against terrorism. He does not seem to be ready to bring to justice those responsible for the institutionalized torture, which, according to the Senate report, did not produce any crucial information to flush out America’s enemies. As Human Rights Watch points out, the Senate report should be the beginning of a process of criminal investigation into the abuses committed by the George W. Bush administration. This catharsis is necessary if America is to live up to its ideals once more, the price it has to pay to regain a moral authority that it has partly lost.