The cover page to the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program.
Professor and judge Steve Russell doesn't think there's much to cheer with the release of a portion of the CIA torture report:
Some of my friends are celebrating that 2014 was the year the “Torture Report” finally came out, allowing the world to see that the United States is big enough to admit its shortcomings for all to see. This is why the U.S. deserves to be a leader on the side of morality. The truth trumps even perceived self-interest. American Indians, of course, are not convinced the United States has ever owned up to its human rights shortcomings in separating the inhabitants of the Americas from their property, their spirituality, their children. All this over and above merely taking Indian lives. It’s important to acknowledge the periodic lurches of policy toward doing the right thing. The Indian Claims Commission. The Meriam Report. We’ve had friends inside the government whose work lives after they walked on. Felix S. Cohen comes to mind. It’s not that the United States does not have a persistent righteous streak in public policy. The problem is that the righteous impulses are seldom translated to policies and, when they are, the goodwill is not evenly distributed.Get the Story:
Steve Russell: The Torture Report and the Indian Wars (Indian Country Today 1/8)
Join the Conversation
