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Officials responsible should be prosecuted

The Senate Intelligence Committee released details Tuesday of a report on the CIA’s program to detain and interrogate terror suspects.Mark Wilson/Getty Images/File 2004

Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee report solidifies what watchdog groups have been saying for 13 years: that the CIA’s use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques amounts to nothing less than torture, and, furthermore, that these techniques did not produce actionable intelligence (“CIA used brutal methods, misled leaders, report finds,” Page A1, Dec. 10).

I wonder whether this report will finally make a difference to the nearly half of Americans who approve of such techniques, or whether a decade of television shows like “24” and “Homeland” — works of fiction, which present torture as a valuable tool in the arsenal of the so-called good guys — have simply overwhelmed our understanding of the truth.

Our position as a nation that violates global human rights law not only erodes our national soul, it also weakens us in the propaganda war against radical groups, such as ISIS, that claim to be acting in righteous retribution against Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

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But beyond all of these arguments, there is the clear fact that torture is against our own laws: Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C of the US federal code. People who break laws need to face the consequences — in this case, up to 20 years in prison.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, called our government’s use of torture “a stain on our values and history,” but the real source of the stain has been our unwillingness to hold accountable the officials who perpetrate these acts in our name. Americans need to pressure their representatives and the Justice Department to prosecute the officials responsible. If we fail to do this, then the CIA is not solely to blame for these atrocities. We all are.

David Nurenberg
Somerville