A war crime treated like a policy debate

THE United States Senate commendably passed an amendment outlawing torture by a wide margin recently but given that torture is already against the law – both through existing US statute and by international treaty – what does that really mean?

The bill, a response by law­makers to last year’s devastating CIA torture report that exposed the agency’s rampant illegal conduct and subsequent cover-up in the years after 9/11, would force all US agencies, including the CIA, finally, to comply with the Pentagon’s rulebook on interrogations.