The Hill News

The United States experienced an inspiring moment earlier this month, when a 747 carried the space shuttle Discovery to its new home at the Smithsonian. I was fortunate to be in Washington that day; as I looked up at the sky, I was moved to feel pride in the intelligence, the vision and the scientific knowledge of this great country that made the space shuttle possible.
 
I keep thinking about that day as I consider Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives, former chief of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center Jose Rodriguez’s book that praises the benefits of the torture he helped inflict on 9-11 detainees. It’s difficult to rationalize how the visionary work of something like our space program can come from the same country as the cowardly and inhumane work of our detainee interrogation program. This country can do such good, but we can also make terrible mistakes, and when we do, we must admit them, not justify the! m.

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