A renewed debate on torture in this country is a good thing. A new president does not mean the old crimes are washed away. The old crimes are still sharp and they are slicing and dicing us.

A week ago, President Obama exercised courage in releasing internal torture memos from the Bush administration. Although it violates U.S. and international law, including the Geneve Conventions, torture was the official policy of the United States government. No one cared. September 11 changed everything, they said, and it was gloves off.

Here is what we are learning about torture these days:

1. An army major suggests the torture was done in part to establish a link between Iraq and 9/11 at the time the Bush administration was trying to sell the war to the American public. Rich links to this psychiatrist's testimony so you can see it for yourself. A New York Times columnist, Frank Rich, highlights this in a piece over the weekend. The link to the testimony checks out. What makes this eye-popping is that this was happening at the same time that (then) secret documents circulating among the British government had confirmed that the Bush administration was stretching the facts to support the war policy at a time when the public was wavering on the war but the administration wanted it badly. Dating to summer 2002 (seven or eight months before the war began), these are known as the Downing Street Memos, a smoking gun which establishes that Bush wanted war in the worse possible way.

2. OK, but does torture work? The growing consensus is that it does not. An FBI agent suggests there were other ways to gain real intelligence from detainees beyond torture. He published an article on this topic in the New York Times last Thursday. This AP article also summarizes the view that torture is less effective than commonly believed, and that there are other ways of gaining useful intelligence. This article is not new, but it's new to me, so it's probably new to you.

3. This particular government interrogator does not believe torture works and that it resulted in the deaths of American soldiers. And this fellow who was affiliated with the navy thought the same thing. He told the Senate:

First, there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And there are other senior officers who are convinced that the proximate cause of Abu Ghraib was the legal advice authorizing abusive treatment of detainees that issued from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2002.

Second, allied nations reportedly hesitated on occasion to participate in combat operations if there was the possibility that, as a result, individuals captured during the operation could be abused by U.S. or other forces.

Third, allied nations have refused on occasion to train with us in joint detainee capture and handling operations because of concerns about U.S. detainee policies.
And fourth, senior NATO officers in Afghanistan have been reported to have left the room when issues of detainee treatment have been raised by U.S. officials out of fear that they may become complicit in detainee abuse.

4. Some of this information is new, but some of the most important information is not. We have long known that many of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (the scene of the photographs that came out a few years ago showing U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners) were innocent, guilty of nothing.

We have a choice. We can take all of this news seriously, or we can sweep it under the rug and look forward, not back. I prefer to look back. The people who condoned torture and made it U.S. policy should be severely punished. If Obama wants to be the man of change, this is the opportunity to show us what's made of. If he is afraid of looking weak on terror, he can highlight the fact that American soldiers died because of the torture policy. The Bush administration's desire for retribution killed our brothers and sisters.