The groundwork for this is already being laid. The incoming Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), says he will not hold hearings on what the report reveals or follow up on it in any way. "Put this report down to a footnote in history," he says. Burr also dismisses the torture revelations as an attempt to "smear the Bush administration" -- as if the facts of the matter were just contrived by political enemies to provoke a scandal.
Second, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern suggests, it is quite possible that most in the Bush administration did not care whether torture really worked or not. McGovern tells us that what the White House wanted was a justification for an invasion of Iraq. "Evidence" suggesting a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda would do just fine here. The pressure was on the CIA to produce that link and so they tortured al-Qaeda prisoners until they told them what President Bush wanted to hear. This seems a tempting gambit for use by future presidents who might share George W. Bush's character.
Thus, if Dianne Feinstein wants to make sure that the U.S. government will not use torture in the future, just demonstrating (once more) that it does not work won't do. The only thing that has a chance of achieving her goal is the strict enforcement the law against torture -- take Bush and his accomplices and put them on trial for the crimes we all know they committed. Then, put the whole gang in jail for long enough to make a deep impression. With that precedent set, you have a shot at preventing U.S.-sanctioned torture in the future.
President Obama actually had an opportunity to set this precedent but, as we all know, he has declined to do so. One can imagine his advisers telling him that all presidents break the law in one way or another and to charge Bush with a crime would open Pandora's Box -- from that point on it would be open season on every future president. Yet, is it necessarily true that all presidents must go around breaking the law? And, if so, why should any of us find this acceptable?
Part IV -- Conclusion
Despite the revelations of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, the chances are pretty good that Bush and his operatives will get away with their crimes. And that means that chances are just as good that it will all happen again. The public's awareness of the facts is at best unreliable. According to a Pew poll just reported on 15 December 2014, half of the American public even now believes that the use of torture was both justified and provided worthwhile intelligence. It is probable that the opinion of most elected officials is no different.
No one has yet been able to secure a meaningful place for relevant and accurate historical knowledge, either in the mind of the general public or in the deliberations of policy makers. However, in both cases, ignorance and false assumptions seem secure in their positions of influence.
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