American Torture & Gulags!

Andrew Sullivan is one of the most eloquent, engaged voices out in the blogosphere, especially when it comes to the Bush/Cheney Torture Regime. In the darkest days, when the USA went off the rails in response to The Terror, Andrew was a strong, clear voice. He has not been afraid to point out that "enhanced interrogation," is, and has always been, torture. And torture is illegal, and immoral, and those who do it, or authorize it, should be prosecuted for "crimes against humanity."

So with the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's "Torture Report," Andrew Sullivan is a "go-to" source. He and his staff have meticulously plowed through the report and comment on it as they go.  It's all a must-read. Chilling, outrageous, sad, disturbing, terrible. We knew some of these horrors before, but not in such detail. And it's worse and more horrible and inhumane than many of us imagined.

Certainly one of the darkest chapters of the history of the USA. We are no different than our enemies if we commit atrocities against the enemies who commit atrocities against us. "Black Sites" of torture are just another way of saying "American Gulags." We want to look away, but we must not! And we must prosecute those who committed these crimes.

Here is Ronald Reagan's position on the matter: "Each state party is required to prosecute torturers who are found in it's territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."

Kevin Drum also sums up the report quite succinctly: "... The torture was far more brutal than we thought and the CIA lied about that. It didn't work and they lied about that too. It produced so much bad intel that it most likely impaired our National Security, and of course they lied about that as well."