I don't know how to define "torture" anymore. As with "racism," the word has been so overused that it's practically meaningless now. But I doubt that any person the U.S. has interrogated was ever beheaded, crucified, dismembered, or disemboweled. Someone should send the United Nations that memo. (I maintain that the U.N. building should be turned into the world's largest parking garage.)
I agree with former Senator Bob Kerrey that the "torture" report fails our country. As he points out, there are no recommendations contained in it. What, then, is the purpose of releasing the report? This puts Americans in danger across the world, as well as at home. Why publish it at all? What possible good can come of this action?
Politicians--in this case, Dianne Feinstein--never cease to amaze me with the depths of their egotism and stupidity. Here we have the outgoing chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (there's an oxymoronic descriptor), clubbing the country over the head as she sulks out the door. It's as though she's wagging her finger at the voters who recently crushed her party: "Remember, America, how terrible things were under the Republicans and President Bush." It's pure vengeance, applied during her waning days of power. The release of this report before the Senate reverts to a Republican majority in January shows that Feinstein is perfectly willing to throw U.S. embassy personnel, intelligence operatives, and military personnel under the bus to assert her moral superiority. It's difficult to imagine a more disgustingly selfish motive.
President Obama has chimed in with "When we make mistakes, we admit them." Excuse me? When did this know-it-all ever admit a single mistake in the past six years of his train wreck of a presidency? George Orwell would have trouble believing what we're watching unfold in our government today.
When people start dying over this "torture" report, the blood will be on Feinstein's self-serving hands. I wonder if she'll ever admit that mistake.
