Lee Hamilton (former Congressman and former 911 commission co-chairman) calls for a complete end of torture, driven by improved Congressional oversight.

He believes that the reputational and social damage is such that it cannot be justified.

Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism, while lauding Hamilton’s call for and end to torture, notes that the fact that the former congressman is suggesting weak tea when specifically eschews prosecutions:

Kudos, but who would be stupid enough to believe us if we said we had? There is only one way to do that, and that’s to put the torturers on trial, and convict them.

He’s right.

Until we prosecute the worst of the torturers, and pull the security clearances of the rest, the senior staff of our state security apparatus will be populated by those torturers, any promise of better behavior is simply not credible.