Torture Still Bad.

Thanks to the report on torture, we now officially know that the CIA:

• Tortured people, by any definition of torture
• Tortured innocent people
• Tortured people to death
• Kept on torturing people even after the interrogators reported that they had no more information to provide
• Didn't get any important information that had not already been obtained elsewhere
• Didn't get more reliable information; rather, less.

So much for the "ticking time bomb" theory of torture.

Because the US is a signatory to the UN convention on torture (signed by St Ronald of Reagan, no less), we are now legally obliged to prosecute the torturers. And if we do not, how are we to prosecute torturers from other nations? After WWII we prosecuted torturers as war criminals - and rightly so. What will we do next time? How will we respond when our enemies capture our soldiers (or our civilians for that matter) and torture them?

Sadly this has now become a partisan thing. Especially (no) thanks to Dick Cheney, the Republicans will try to block any such prosecution. And so America's reputation is further trashed.

For those who say the report should not have been released - do not imagine that other people didn't already know about this. Foreign intelligence services will have already known. Al Qaeda will have already known. The whole planet already knew. What this report does is tell the American people, officially. And now the American people have a choice, officially: to prosecute or not to prosecute. We can't say we didn't know, we were not told; we have to make a decision and stick with it. Do we want a world where torture is used by governments and justified by our own actions? Or do we want a world of UN Convention on Torture, where prosecutions await such actions in every civilised country?

I want a world that stamps out barbarism. I am disgusted by all those in the Bush administration who instigated and defended the practice; and I am deeply disappointed by those since who were in a position to pursue them and not.

And incidentally, anyone who complains that "Muslim leaders don't condemn terrorism", and who does not themselves publicly condemn torture, has no credibility.

Investigate. Uncover. Prosecute. Never repeat.