"We’ll use enhanced interrogation techniques which go beyond those that are in the military handbook right now." — Mitt Romney, vowing to reinstitute the program during the 2012 campaign.
There will be no criminal accountability for the American policy of torturing war prisoners. That has already been determined. It is also almost certain that, in one of the next few administrations, America will return to those same pro-torture policies. As has been true for years, torture advocates (yes, that is a thing) are far more furious about exposure of the program than about the part where the United States of America, a supposedly exceptional nation, tortured and killed prisoners in various attempts to get them to divulge or fabricate information.
Those who served us in aftermath of 9/11 deserve our thanks not one sided partisan Senate report that now places American lives in danger.
— @marcorubio
McConnell: torture report serves " no purpose whatsoever" other than to "endanger Americans"
— @ThePlumLineGS
That would be the ambitious Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a presidential contender, and the person who will now be running the agenda of the United States Senate.
CIA torture report released. Good. I'm ok torturing terrorists & I want terrorists to know we'll do anything to them.
http://t.co/...
— @WalshFreedom
That would be Republican ex-congressman and current radio show host Joe Walsh. And here's the omnipresent neoconservative pundit and man who fits his name Max Boot:
@dandrezner Practices decried in report already long discontinued. Raking up the past hurts CIA morale, emboldens our enemies.
— @MaxBoot
Well now we wouldn't want to damage the morale of anyone who actually tortured people. Calling torture techniques "long discontinued," however, is a bit of a red herring when many of the most influential political minds in the nation continue to advocate for resuming the practice at next opportunity. The last Republican presidential candidate pledged to
resume the practice in his campaign rhetoric.
Please read below the fold for more on this story.
Prominent torture defender Marc Thiessen—if he once held any other post but that one, it has been lost to history—continues to swear that the torture of prisoners is paying dividends even to this day.
That link is to a Theissen column asserting that the killing of a man "believed to be al-Qaeda's top operational commander" by Pakistani forces
this very week could be attributed to the 2003 capture and torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In doing so, Theissen paints a ticking time bomb scenario 11 years, nine-ish months long—an impressive genre entry.
While Sen. John McCain was (again, we note) giving an emotional speech condemning torture, one of his closest Republican allies was having none of it. Sen. Lindsey Graham released a statement condemning the release of the report.
The timing of the release is problematic given the growing threats we face. Terrorism is on the rise, and our enemies will seize upon this report at a critical time. Simply put, this is not the time to release the report.
I believe its release at this time is politically motivated. I have no doubts that it will create problems for our country and the men and women serving our nation around the globe.
As for those more intimately involved?
Fmr CIA director Tenet on #torturereport-"The [Senate Intel Committee leadership say the report will ensure this never happens again." 1/2
— @GStephanopoulos
Fmr CIA dir Tenet on #torturereport: "My hope is that a report like this—biased, inaccurate, and destructive will never happen again." 2/2
— @GStephanopoulos
And that is why America tortured prisoners, and that is why America will return to torturing prisoners again, most likely during the very next conservative-minded administration. The president said today that torturing prisoners was "
contrary to our values," but that is manifestly not true. By explicitly refusing to criminalize those actions we have made it an issue of ideological debate,
not an edict to be enforced by either national or international law.
As such, torture will become "our values" again the very moment someone in office decides to make it such. Look to the names above; one of them could very well sign the order, or write the memos justifying that order, or write the columns celebrating the order, or stifle the investigations into the next order. We were a nation that tortured prisoners. We are still a nation that will torture prisoners. We are, when it comes to holding ourselves to the same laws as other nations, exceptional.