“It is high time you recovered your consciences.”

Archbishop Oscar Romero, an American protestor against El Salvador’s US-backed dictator. spoke these final words just one day before he was assassinated.

Taking Romero’s final sermon to heart, Father Roy Bourgeois and his fellow activists played a recording of these words outside the School of the Americas, a military training facility in Fort Benning, Georgia. Through this demonstration, Father Roy sought to confront Latin American officers being trained in brutal torture tactics in the United States.

The startling pictures of naked prisoners piled on top of one another at Abu Ghraib prison was a frequently seen image on the news. After investigation, seven soldiers and two officers were convicted on charges of cruel and abusive interrogation techniques. While pictures provide visible evidence of these allegations, it remains unclear as to who, if anyone, ordered this type of unlawful behavior. However, the recent release of memos ordering harsh interrogation techniques by former President Bush shed light onto the reality of the situation.

So, we're a nation that tortures. Doesn't feel particularly good to think about in the abstract, let alone face as a reality. But, that's what the United States has done, torture. We've probably done it for a long while. Writing this blog, I saw two options as to how to handle the issue. I could just talk about how we justified torture in several ways, ranging from the "greater good" argument to avoiding the issue on technicalities (e.g.

President Obama’s decision to release internal CIA documents detailing interrogation techniques represents a fundamental contradiction in his policy towards torture and transparency. President Obama has vehemently expressed his opposition to anything that can be construed as torture (rightly so) and one of his first actions as President was to close down Guantanamo Bay. However, President Obama has decided to “move forward” by releasing these torture memos, yet maintains the same state secret arguments that President Bush utilized. President Obama cannot have it both ways.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to move beyond what he calls a "a dark and painful chapter in our history," President Barack Obama said Thursday that CIA officials who used harsh interrogation tactics during the Bush administration will not be prosecuted.

The government also released four memos long held secret by the Bush administration in which its lawyers approved in extensive and often graphic detail the tough interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects, the fullest and now complete government accounting of the techniques. The rough tactics range from waterboarding — simulated drowning — to using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to move beyond what he calls a "a dark and painful chapter in our history," President Barack Obama said Thursday that CIA officials who used harsh interrogation tactics during the Bush administration will not be prosecuted.

The government also released four memos long held secret by the Bush administration in which its lawyers approved in extensive and often graphic detail the tough interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects, the fullest and now complete government accounting of the techniques. The rough tactics range from waterboarding — simulated drowning — to using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls.

Last night, Cornell students, staff, faculty and Ithaca locals came together in Kaufmann Auditorium for a panel discussion that featured doctors from the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. The program provides comprehensive care for victims of torture and aspires to raise public consciousness about such issues. The Campus Anti-War Network, the Committee on U.S.-Latin American Relations and Amnesty International sponsored the event.

The panel included Dr. Allen Keller, who oversees and coordinates medical programs for Survivors of Torture, Dr. Samantha Stewart, the program’s psychiatrist and Dr. Homer Venters, the attending physician of the program.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate and House Democrats demanded Thursday to see two secret memos that reportedly authorize painful interrogation tactics against terror suspects — despite the Bush administration's insistence that it has not violated U.S. anti-torture laws.

White House and Justice Department press officers said legal opinions written in 2005 did not reverse an administration policy issued in 2004 that publicly renounced torture as "abhorrent."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller sent a letter to the acting attorney general saying the administration's credibility is at risk if the documents are not turned over to Congress.