If the twentieth century proved anything, it is that no nation, no constitutional system, is immune from the downward human rights spiral signified by torture--as Britain, France and Israel, among other nations, learned at great political cost. The purpose of this special issue is to confront the sweeping moral seriousness of the American torture crisis of the twenty-first century. The point is not so much that we are "better than our enemies," as Senator McCain and others have argued, but that our democratic institutions are vulnerable to erosion. The outline of the torture conspiracy is clear, but the full facts need to be exposed and the chain of responsibility definitively established. History will judge the Bush Administration's torture policy in the same harsh light as Jim Crow, McCarthyism and the Japanese-American internment. The conspirators must be held accountable.
Of course, you can also take a gander at Pinter's blast at the Administration, current and all post-WWII. He does have a valid point, since even to a low-brow like me, it has been clear that our policy in the Middle East, not to mention most of the rest of the world, has been bankrupt for generations. Let's just hope we can make the needed corrections before we are viewed in the same light as the Nazis and other luminaries of the 20th century.