Transparency needed about U.S. torture transgressions

The debate about military action in Syria has reintroduced certain vocabu- lary back into the American lexicon, words last seen when the United States entered the war in Iraq: "irrefutable proof," "chemical weapons" and "justification."

But the one word that remains missing is "transparency."

The First Unitarian Church of Honolulu affirms that free access to information and knowledge is vital to responsible world citizenship, and Americans should be no exception.

It is past time for transparency on past national security mistakes, especially the torture of detainees suspected of terrorism.

A recent two-year investigation into U.S. treatment of 9/11 detainees has concluded that the U.S. government engaged in illegal torture. The Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment based its bipartisan report on an examination of public records and interviews with eyewitnesses and involved persons. This task force report describes numerous examples of torture in detail, including several cases where individuals were literally tortured to death.

The report documents that the U.S. used interrogation techniques that it previously had condemned as illegal when used by other countries, including sexual humiliation, waterboarding, stress positions, extended sleep deprivation and prolonged solitary confinement. Not only were detainees mistreated in cruel ways, the report documents, the U.S. captured and held as prisoners detainees who had no connection to terrorism.

At the same time, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee conducted its own investigation into torture, during which it reviewed more than 6 million pages of documents. This Senate report is more than 6,000 pages long, almost 10 times the size of the task force report, and is based in part on information contained in classified documents that were unavailable to the task force.

Now is the time for transparency. The Senate Intelligence Committee must release its report as soon as possible.

Unitarian-Universalists join with hundreds of other faith-based member institutions of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture to encourage the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report. We join the detainee task force in its affirmation that "… having as thorough as possible an understanding of what occurred, and a willingness to acknowledge any shortcomings, strengthens the nation and equips us to better cope with the next crisis and ones after that. Moving on without such a reckoning weakens our ability to claim our place as an exemplary practitioner of the rule of law."

Torture is a clear evil, but hiding the truth, especially about something as gravely wrong as the torture of another human being, is worse still. Our faith drives toward the truth and toward the power that the truth can give to set things right.

Transparency and access to information, especially about wrongs done in our name, are essential to moral citizenship. Again, we urge the Senate Intelligence Committee to release its report immediately. Full possession of the facts is the first step to a U.S. that tortures no more.