Greenwald on the IG's Torture Report

Blogger and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald writes:

"I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder's decision to 'review' whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects -- that can be read here -- but I want to write separately about the release today of the 2004 CIA's Inspector General Report (.pdf), both because it's extraordinary in its own right and because it underscores how unjust it would be to prosecute only low-level interrogators rather than the high-level officials who implemented the torture regime."

See the rest of Glenn's piece here, which includes excerpts of the IG's report.

Unfortunately, some media folks are distorting the issue by claiming that torture is effective -- thus, law-breaking torturers should get a break.  Some fictional TV shows do, in fact, make torture seem effective (e.g., "24").

Many intelligence officials and the Army Field Manual indicate that torture is not effective.  Though you don't need a degree to figure this one out, many psychologists find torture to be ineffective, because someone in pain is likely to give even false answers to get the pain to stop.

Whether or not torture is effective is not actually the issue.  The real issue is that torture is just as illegal as bank robbery [see 18 U.S. Code 2340(a) and 2340].  Until bank robbery is made legal, people who get caught helping themselves to a bank's money end up in rison.  That's justice.

If government officials want to commit torture without going to prison, then they need to pressure Congress to make torture legal.

Until they do that, torture is a violation of law -- which means, at least in a nation that values equal justice under the law, that those who commit torture (or order underlings to do it) should be held accountable.  Andrew Sullivan comments:

"The descent of the United States - and of Americans in general - to lower standards of morality and justice than those demanded by Iranians of their regime is a sign of the polity's moral degeneracy."