Hypotheticals about detention and torture often involve imminent threats on America and terrorists who are obviously guilty. But this damning paragraph from the new Senate torture report describes how the program actually played out — in a way that led to the capture of people later determined to be "wrongfully held":
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There are several ugly bits here, not least that the CIA detained an "intellectually challenged" man to try to make a relative of his talk. But that highlighted part is particularly revealing. The CIA tortured a detainee, he then gave them some bad information, and they used that bad information to detain two more people. It shows how secret programs of torture and detention can become a self-perpetuating system, with little accountability, that spirals out of control.
