Concerned over torture techniques

I have followed the news surrounding the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report concerning the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which are more commonly called torture. As a citizen, a veteran and a person who loves this country, I am particularly concerned by the following:

* The procedures and techniques used by the CIA to elicit information from detainees, which included water boarding, were same type of practices that were the basis for the imprisonment of Japanese military officials after the Second World War.

* John Brennon, director of the CIA, in a recent statement said that, "The cause and effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable."

* Even if EITs or torture provides information, the practice is problematic. I would suggest that a superpower such as the United States that professes moral arguments to under pin its global vision for human rights and democracy cannot just abandon such standards in a search for absolute security.

To quote part of Sen. John McCain's Dec. 9 statement, "But in the end, torture's failure to serve its intended purpose isn't the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said, and will always maintain, that this question isn't about our enemies; it's about us. It's about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It's about how we represent ourselves to the world Â…. Our enemies act without conscience. We must not."

JOHN PIEPHO, Cape Girardeau