IN PLAIN SIGHT

My review of the various government reports on torture by the U.S. in the war on terror is now up on the NYT site. Maybe it helps explain why I am still exercised about this. I remain a strong believer in the cause of liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from tyranny; and in trying to move the Arab Muslim world toward democracy. President Bush and prime minister Blair deserve huge praise for seeing this through. I just cannot believe what the Bush administration has managed to do in the execution – to America’s reputation, to the West’s integrity and to the cause itself. It is not irreparable – and I’m very cautiously optimistic about the long-term prospects for Iraq. But we owe it to the cause to investigate where we have gone wrong, and to do everything we can to put it right. The Bush administration’s failure to come to terms with this simply isn’t good enough, in my view. The fact that the United States has been routinely and illegally practising torture in its interrogation procedures is abhorrent to everything we are supposed to stand for. Some things simply cannot be wished away or moved on from. Especially when, in all likelihood, they are still occurring.