It's the kind of thing that reminds you how completely jarring it is that we're even having this debate in the first place. It seems like in an enlightened democracy, "torture: bad" should be a given. Like, "institutional legitimacy comes from the people, not from birthright or divine right to rule" and "Nickelback is terrible." But I guess we're not as enlightened as we all thought, because even though the second two statements are accepted as true by all reasonable people, somehow we're still having a debate about whether or not it's okay to subject our fellow human beings to unimaginable suffering when it's highly unlikely that doing so will yield any material benefit whatsoever.

But that's kind of beside the point, isn't it? "Torture doesn't work," while technically a true statement, shouldn't have to even be part of the argument. Because the main point here is that even if torture did work, we as a nation are supposed to be better than that. We're supposed to be capable of respecting the human dignity of even our worst enemies. And by failing to do that, for nothing more than the illusion of some small gains in security, we've forfeited a chunk of our soul.

And here's another depressing thought for you: You can't un-torture someone. The human rights violations of the Bush era have left a stain on American history that we're never going to be able to erase. The best we can do is see it as a reminder of what happens when we forget who we are, and make sure that stain doesn't spread any more than it has.