The question is no longer whether these acts were torture but how we will respond to them. Susan Crawford, the Bush-appointed head of the Guantanamo military commissions, confirmed that the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, dogs, and forced shaving on detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani were torture. The current U.S. attorney general and the head of the CIA agree that waterboarding is torture - and, of course, torture is a federal crime.
Yet, to date, nearly all of the people prosecuted for detainee abuse and torture have been privates and sergeants. Indeed, only one civilian has been prosecuted for torture or abuse crimes. Those at the highest levels who cynically manipulated the law to authorize torture have yet to be held to account. Rather, the Obama administration continues to shield implicated officials by resisting disclosure of torture photographs, refusing to give the courts evidence of torture and rendition programs, and asking for suppression of significant portions of the CIA inspector general report.
What should be done to bring integrity back to our constitutional democracy?
First, the public has a right to know what took place in its name. Rule of law means that no one is above the law. The ACLU is calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate and pursue appropriate prosecutions. And Congress needs to play its proper oversight role, appointing a select committee (consisting of members of Congress and their staff) to study current and past national security practices, to identify and correct abuses and to enact legislative reform. There is a bill in the House that would create such a committee.
The effect of these remedial steps would not be, as some have suggested, to criminalize politics. On the contrary, to attempt to "move on" while standing on a foundation of unacknowledged criminality would be to politicize criminal conduct.
Finally, the ACLU calls on all Americans to join us in restoring the rule of law. As a nation of laws, we must hold ourselves accountable to the laws - the only way to prevent a dark legacy of torture from casting a long shadow on a bright future for democracy.
Susan Goering is executive director of the ACLU of Maryland. Her e-mail is goering@aclu-md.org. Information available at www.aclu.org/accountability.
