The US Torture Report

The report about unlawful interrogation conducted by the CIA is generating criticism, but at the same time it is commendable that this has been made public.

The publication of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report about the conduct of its country’s Central Intelligence Agency after the bloody terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York was surely a surprise to many due to its distressing contents, and it is generating at least two kinds of reactions.

First, there is a feeling of real and very profound unease, given confirmation that the CIA tortured a good number of foreign prisoners that were being held on suspicion of a connection to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. This unease also comes from the disclosure that the CIA blatantly and extensively lied to the president and to Congress whenever it had to report on its activities. Both of these actions are absolutely unacceptable and must be taken extremely seriously.

Secondly, there is a feeling that recognizes the enormous civic courage it took for congressional leaders to publicize these abominable facts. This reaction further recognizes the courage it took to identify the profound errors and excesses, to call for these policies and behaviors to be corrected and to provide transparency to the deeply painful and immensely cruel deeds, which never should have happened. This response acknowledges the importance of doing away with shamefully brutal procedures, which must clearly be regarded as inhumane.

Here again, regarding this unforgivable behavior, it can be said that the light of day is the best cure. Public disclosure led to the discovery of so-called “hostile interrogations,” a euphemism which does not conceal or justify a pattern of truly macabre torture that occurred in prisons located abroad— in Poland, Romania and Lithuania, for example—yet were operated by the CIA.

Accordingly, the harsh remarks made by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the committee responsible for the report, about the CIA’s conduct are quite correct, particularly when she concluded that this information highlights unacceptable methods which place a true “stain on our values and our history.” This is indeed the case.

Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, state that no one can be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, not even for the purpose of obtaining information concerning possible acts of terrorism.

It is therefore the obligation of every state to end acts of torture within every territory under its jurisdiction, without having to call upon exceptional or emergency situations to try to justify the unjustifiable.

Emotions aside, the responsible parties need to be investigated and, where appropriate, punished for what happened, and the penalties need to fit the tremendous severity of their conduct. Moreover, all nations must take the necessary steps to prevent this conduct from happening again.