The Torture Reports.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a 400-page report of its investigation into the CIA's interrogation and detention programmes today. I don't know what to say — the details are frankly ghastly.

The report reveals that use of torture in secret prisons run by the CIA across the world was even more extreme than previously exposed, and included “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding”, sleep deprivation lasting almost a week and threats to the families of the detainees.
The “lunch tray” for one detainee, which contained hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins, “was ‘pureed’ and rectally infused”, the report says. One detainee whose rectal examination was conducted with “excessive force” was later diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, anal fissures and rectal prolapse. Investigators also documented death threats made to detainees. And CIA interrogators, the committee charged, told detainees they would hurt detainees’ children and “sexually assault” or “cut a [detainee’s] mother’s throat”.

I don't know what more there is to say about torture, to be honest. It is grotesque. It is inhuman. We get further confirmation of its inefficacy.I don't want to sound like a broken moralizing record on repeat and wheel out the big old "Shame on America; hypocrisy at its ugliest" cliches but when I read about stuff like these it's hard to resist the temptation. Just how much of an imperative is security? Can we really condone such acts in the name of security? My intuition screams no.

I found the Guardian editorial on the torture reports touched on some interesting political dimensions I hadn't thought too much about.

In one sense, it is a tribute to the US that it has published such a report. It is certainly a huge contrast to the cosy inadequacy of UK policy, practice and accountability – shortcomings that parliament must address. But it is a report about state crimes that should never have been committed, should never have been authorised, should never have been ignored by the US’s allies – and which remain unpunished. Moreover, the report has only been published now because, next month, a change of political control in the US Senate would have led to its suppression by the Republicans.

I know the Singapore government, much like the UK government,  would never — and I mean never — publish a report like this. I appreciate the transparency the US is demonstrating here, even if everything else is abhorrent to me. And isn't it curious too: it turns out to be partisan politics that pushed the report to light of day. Ambivalence seems to be the only rational attitude towards the U.S. politics.