It’s been thirteen years since interrogators and military police at Abu Ghraib prison tortured detainees, and twelve since the abuse, captured on film, was disclosed to the world. It’s been even longer since a pair of psychologists, James Mitchell and John Jessen, developed torture tactics for the CIA’s interrogation of “high-value detainees” who had been disappeared into secret prisons. There is little doubt that the tactics employed at Abu Ghraib and by the CIA were not just illegal, but war crimes. They intentionally inflicted severe and wanton abuse, humiliation, and pain on detainees under our control. Federal and international law alike absolutely prohibit such treatment. Practically no one other than Dick Cheney seriously defends the CIA’s tactics, and even Cheney won’t defend what happened at Abu Ghraib. Yet apart from the court-martial of a few low-level soldiers at Abu Ghraib, no one has been held accountable for these wrongs. Two recent cases suggest that, finally, this may change. ...

Read the full piece here.