The National Effort at Self-Exoneration on Torture

by Paul R. Pillar The nation’s current attempt at catharsis through a gargantuan report prepared by the Democratic staff of a Senate committee exhibits some familiar patterns. Most of them involve treating a government agency as if it were Dorian Gray’s… Continue Reading

The Senate Report on CIA Torture: “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”

by Robert E. Hunter Finally, someone in the US government has followed through on President Barack Obama’s judgment that CIA-conducted and “-outsourced” torture—let’s call it by its common name—is “not who we are” as a nation.  Finally, the Senate Select… Continue Reading

The CIA-SSCI Feud and US Capacity for Self-Reflection in the “War on Terror”

by Derek Davison The CIA and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) have been embroiled for several weeks in a dispute over the declassification of a sweeping Senate report, the product of an investigation into the George W. Bush-era CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program. The SSCI’s… Continue Reading