opinion pieces on torture:

here's an important piece by mark danner, from yesterday's washpost. danner has done the fundamental research on revealing torture memos/practices, for the new york review of books.

Unlike Watergate or Iran-contra, today's scandal emerges not from a shocking revelation of wrongdoing but from a long process of disclosure during which Americans have stared at blatant lawbreaking with apparent equanimity. This means Democrats as well as Republicans, including those in Congress who were willing to approve, as late as September 2006, a law, the Military Commissions Act, that purported to shield those who had applied these "enhanced interrogation techniques" from prosecution under the War Crimes Act.

michael gerson is pretty thoughtful on this matter. he's a former bush speechwriter with a religious slant.