The United States of America is at moral crossroads

The CIA should be shut down.

The spy work, if there was any, can be carried on gamely by the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Air Force Intelligence, the FBI's National Security Branch, the Army Intelligence and Security Command, the Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Coast Guard Intelligence, the Treasury's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (sic), the National Reconnaissance Office, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to say nothing of all the state and local police spooks.

Military operations should have been handled by the Department of Defense all along.

But it will be a further crime if all that happens now is that a few relatively-low level functionaries, however blood-soaked their uniforms, are scape-goated, Abu Graib-style. This fish was rotting from the head. The only way that these and other crimes can be prevented from happening in the future is to hold the perpetrators accountable. If this were some failing garrison in the Third World, instead of the failing Leader of the World, the State Department would be piously scolding them to clean-house. The United States needs to be live up to its ideals. If we can't clean our house, if we can't prosecute the criminals ourselves, as domestic and international law requires, then we should turn Bush, Cheney, and their co-conspirators over to the International Criminal Court and let the world community help us out.

More:
CIA tortured, misled, U.S. report finds, drawing calls for action by Mark Hosenball (Reuters)

Return of the CIA's 'Rogue Elephants': The Senate's report on torture shows U.S. intelligence agencies need to be reined in again by Peter Fenn (US News)

There Is Something Worse Than Torture in the Senate Torture Report: It's not the torture—it's the CIA lying by David Corn (Mother Jones)

U.S. under fire over Senate's report on CIA torture by Bill Trott (Reuters UK)

Accountability: Torture as policy in the Bush years

The Torture Report, an initiative of the ACLU's National Security Project, aims to give a full account of the Bush administration's torture program, from its improvised origins to the systematized, lawyer-rationalized maltreatment of hundreds of prisoners in U.S. custody around the world. In this video, Glenn Greenwald, one of the Report's expert contributors, and principal author Larry Siems, who directs the Freedom to Write and International Programs at PEN American Center, reflect on the Report and the ongoing struggle for accountability.
The Torture Report: Chapter 1 - Origins -- Creating the space for torture; Chapter 2 - Experimenting With Torture -- Experimenting With Torture; Chapter 3 - Black Sites, Lies, and Videotapes -- Black Sites, Lies, and Videotapes; Chapter 4, Part 1 - A Ponzi Scheme of Torture -- The Scheme; Chapter 4, Part 2 – A Ponzi Scheme of Torture -- The Story Unravels (Jose Padilla); Chapter 4, Part 3 (new) – A Ponzi Scheme of Torture -- The Story Unravels (Binyam Mohammed & Abu Zubaydah).

Chapter 5 will be released next week: Where Are We Now? by Larry Siems (The Torture Report 2010-07-14)

Change Watch: U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight -- Times Headline

As I wrote during the late campaign, in foreign and military affairs, the Democrats' promise is not really to do things differently, just to do them better.

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

The rest of the story: U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight by David Johnston (New York Times 2009-08-24)