Yes, we tortured. We've known we did. Now it can no longer be denied.

Calling it "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- as Dick Cheney insists -- does not turn it into something other than torture.   It was torture, it is torture, and always will be torture as defined by international agreements. 

In fact, by any definition that's not merely a thin cover of denial of what we were doing, it was torture.

And -- as experts have been telling us for years -- and now the 6000 page investigative report from the Senate Intelligence Committee confirms -- it does not work.  Or at least it shows that any information that came from people being tortured could have been gotten in more conventional ways, without all the myriad ways in which torture degrades everyone involved.

Without a doubt, the net result of the torture program was a huge negative for the United States.    Thousands of young terrorists recruited in direct response to the stories that they heard -- that were true.    How many beheadings by terrorists are direct retaliation for the way we treated their men in our captivity?

What about the loss of respect worldwide?

I wished 10 years ago, and I wish now, that our leaders had had the wisdom of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, that we had set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Agree that no one will be punished for it in exchange for telling the truth about what was done in our name that brought suffering to prisoners and shame to our country.

I respect and am grateful to Sen. Diane Feinstein for persisting in getting this investigation done and getting the report released despite all the opposition.

It was the right thing to do.

Ralph