After Years of Wrangling, Senate Torture Report Drops Tomorrow

American embassies are
apparently on “high alert” overseas in foreign countries in
preparation for the release tomorrow of the Senate Intelligence
Committee’s report on CIA torture. The report descrbes
interrogations that took place in during the Iraq War under the
George W. Bush administration. The White House has “alerted”
relevant parties in other countries to the “No Shit, Sherlock” news
that America’s terrible behavior during the war is going to inflame
radicals and terrorists.

ABC News says not only does the report go into detail about
waterboarding but also describes how “prisoners were sexually
demeaned, and CIA interrogators were urged to continue, even after
concluding that no more information could be gleaned.”

Predictably, people who never want this information to get out
don’t want this information to get out. Soon to be ex-House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) literally
argues it shouldn’t be released because it makes us look bad and
will be used against us. Yes, indeed, our involvement in torture
makes us look terrible in the eyes of the world and our enemies.
That’s one of the reasons why we aren’t supposed to do it, not why
we’re supposed to
hide it after the fact:

“They don’t have to be accurate or right. They just have to
believe it’s true and they will take advantage of that,” Rogers
said. “We know that ISIL propaganda operations will — this is the
motherlode for them.”

Rogers said that there is credible warning that release of the
report will endanger Americans around the world.

“You have foreign leaders saying this report in its current form
will incite violence,” he said. “You have liaison partners in the
intelligence community saying this will incite violence. This will
in fact incite violence and it’s likely to cost someone their
life.”

I should point out, since Rogers is acting like this report was
tossed together by some interns as a summer project, that the
torture report is years in the making, originates from CIA’s own
documentation, and is thousands of pages long. The part of the
torture report that will be released is just the executive summary,
which will still be clocking in at about 500 pages (with currently
unknown levels of redaction).

It’s an awful, unserious response, which shouldn’t really be a
surprise at this point. The torture itself has damaged our
reputation, not its revelation. The blame for any violence that
comes from the release of the report falls squarely on those who
chose to pursue torture as a form of interrogation, not for the
release of the report itself.

Foreign Policy
reports that former intelligence officials plan to launch a
website tomorrow to counter the Senate report called
“CIASavedLives.com.”

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