The process of confirmation of Gina Haspel has re-opened the issue of the use of torture by the government of the United States. We failed to deal severely with this issue back when John Yoo, now a professor of law at Berkeley, and Jay S. Bybee, now a judge in the federal appellate court, were cooking up the so-called “Torture Memos.” 9/11 made the people of America pee in their pants and surrender their rights, morals, and dignity to those who claimed they could keep us safe. We were and ought to be ashamed of ourselves. But what we have now? An antinomian president who is a torture booster, with some of the old crew of torture-enthusiasts to cheer him on. Nomination of a veteran of the torture era to the directorship of the C.I.A. has summoned up a number of demons from Hell. That amoral ghoul, Dick Cheney, has appeared singing again his old “hurt ’em bad” song by way of claiming yet again that he was right all along. And Lt. General Thomas McInerny, making his pitch for torture on the Fox Channel, uttered some gratuitous insults against Senator John McCain for which the General deserves to be horse-whipped.

I will repeat now what I said back in 2002-2003, aged advocates of torture ought to volunteer themselves as laboratory subjects for the development and refinement of torture techniques.