Shame on us. The recently released Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture confirms our worst fears and suspicions. Ruth Marcus, in her Dec. 12 column “Exposing CIA’s stain on America a necessary action,” uses words like “repugnant practices” and “the sordid episode.” “Nations,” she writes, “like individuals, cannot move on from traumatic moments without taking stock of their behavior.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney calls the report “full of crap.” Michael Hayden, CIA director during the George W. Bush era, says we had to do it. Current GOP leaders are rushing to defend the indefensible.
But not Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was tortured in North Vietnam for over five years. Says he, it is “in violation of the Geneva convention” and “besides, it doesn’t work.”
Double shame on us. First, for torturing. Second, for attempting to deny it. “The greatest of sins is to be conscious of none.”
