Dirty War

The United States — the world’s human rights champion — now faces contempt generated by a report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, which reveals that the CIA resorted to brutal torture methods against suspected terrorists between 2001 and 2009.

President Barack Obama admits that these interrogation techniques, including waterboarding the detainees, has caused significant damage to the image of the United States, although the Republican Party still seems to believe that those who committed these acts of torture should be applauded.

Only 524 of the more than 6,000 pages that make up the report were made available to the public, in which it is confirmed that the CIA interrogations, along with detainee confinement conditions, were worse than originally reported to then-President George W. Bush.

Some of the torture methods used in these interrogations, which would go on for weeks, include waterboarding, which consists of simulating drowning; sleep deprivation, sexual violence, hitting the detainees against walls and shouting death threats at them.

Although these methods were implemented after the terrorist attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon, these cruel procedures to extract confessions should not be defended or justified like some former officials of the Bush administration continue doing today.

The report notes that in some cases, torture techniques were so harsh that the staff carrying them out asked if they could stop, only to receive orders from their higher-ups in the CIA to continue. The “rectal hydration” method, for example, totally humiliated detainees.

In that report, which cost $40 million to write, it is noted that the brutal torture methods the CIA used against those suspected of being involved in the 9/11 attacks did not achieve the goal of identifying and apprehending the culprits, nor did it prevent new attacks. The only thing these torture methods did was tarnish the United States’ image.

Before the unveiling of such atrocities, President Obama self-censored these practices: The rest of the civilized world hopes that this will be the beginning of the end of this kind of dirty war, which has only degraded those who promote and support it.