Torture is a moral issue. It is not a political issue. Torture is a lawlessness that undermines everything that the Magna Carta, Habeus Corpus and the Constitution stand for in a Democratic society. It is an issue about the soul of America.
Politicians, pundits and media sources with their legions of naysayers and apologists can genuflect that the release of The Torture Report is a political stunt. It is not. Exposing torture is fundamental of civilized people everywhere and torture is a negation of human dignity and human rights that affects everyone.
There are 3 acts that are completely unacceptable to all countries under international law.
Genocide
Slavery
Torture
Nothing can justify torture, genocide or slavery under any circumstances.
According to the World Organisation of Torture, the following manifesto was signed by Nobel Peace laureates in Geneva, New York, March 2010:
Security, the right to a decent social and economic life, and cultural freedom belong to every member of society. They not only belong to innocent people whose dignity and freedom are inviolable by the state and who must be guaranteed respect for their physical, mental and moral being, but also to offenders who should expect to be judged by independent courts where penalties are defined by law. These rights also belong to the police and judiciary, who have the duty of building a safe society by such legitimate means as are worthy of their professions. They belong to victims, who must renounce vengeance in their demands for justice and compensation. They belong to women, who in their domestic and professional lives must be confident that they will be given equal treatment with men. They belong to indigenous and ethnic minorities who also enjoy the same rights as any other members of the human family. They belong to the poor, for it is no crime to struggle for a better life. They belong to migrants and displaced people looking for the security denied them in their home countries. They belong to those who defend human rights, whose efforts deserve recognition and support; for any infringement of their rights affects the rights of the victims they defend. Finally these rights belong to society as a whole, where no progress is possible without the individual and collective belief that we can create a world in which such rights are guaranteed to everyone.
According to the NYT:
Americans are significantly more pro-torture now than during the Bush years. In 2007, 27 percent of Americans surveyed in a Rasmussen poll said the United States should torture prisoners captured in the war against terrorism. In an August, 2012 YouGov national poll I commissioned, 41 percent said they approved of torture, a gain of 14 points.
It’s not just the vague idea of torture that seems more acceptable now. Specific techniques garner more support, too. In a 2005 USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, 16 percent said that waterboarding was right, 82 percent thought it was wrong. In the YouGov poll, 25 percent said it’s right, and just 55 percent thought it was wrong. Support for naked chaining in cold rooms jumped from 18 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2012 while opposition plummeted from 79 percent to 51 percent, a drop of 28 points. Americans also favored threatening prisoners with dogs and religious humiliation in larger numbers while the percent opposing those techniques dropped dramatically.
There is a lot of work for progressives to convince people in the United Sates that torture is not an American value.