Today’s article in The New York Times is titled, “Waterboarding Used 183 Times on One Suspect.” It provided more information about the torturing of Abu Zubaydah than previously reported.

The new information was discovered in a footnote to four memos about the tactics of the Bush administration in interrogating Al Qaeda suspects. It is shocking that this technique was used so many times on one person and emphasives the arguments by critics that once you open the Pandora’s box of torture, things tend to slide rapidly downhill.

The idea that the United States would resort to such methods and to such a degree robs us of all moral authority vis-a-vis oppresive regimes around the world. They can just declare “national security,” as we did, and we would have no credible response.

President Obama is going to visit C.I.A. headquarters today and will probably reiterate his pledge not to prosecute any agents because they believed they were acting legally.

This argument doesn’t hold water. It is the argument used by underlings throughout time and was thoroughly rejected during the Nuremburg trials: “I was just following orders.”

In any case, the article suggests that some of the waterboarding even exceeded the generous outlines supplied by the Justice Department. These actions demand a response, and the only response to restore our credibility is to hold the perpetrators, yes, perpetrators, responsible.

One of our nation’s most valuable tenets, “the rule of law,” is at stake.

Today’s lead story in The New York Times is titled, “Divisions Arose on Rough Tactics for Qaeda Figure.” It describes the background in the decision to torture an Al Qaeda prisoner, Abu Zubaydah.

The story highlights the problem with approving the use of torture, as described yesterday. Once you have this new “capability,” you look for ways to use it. Interrogators of Abu Zubaydah had successfully used a less harsh technique based on establishing rapport with the prisoner.

The people on-site felt he had supplied all the information he knew, and much of it was very useful in exposing personnel and plans. But officials at C.I.A. headquarters insisted on escalating the situation after he had already been in confinement for several months.

The story describes the effect of torture on the questioner and prisoner alike. Quoting from the article, “Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official  said, ‘seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.’”

These details are all coming out as a result of President Obama’s decision to release secret Bush memos justifying the torture. Mr. Obama should be commended for revealing actions that must be purged from our collective consciousness. Doing so will have a cathartic effect and will help ensure they never happen again.

The lead article in today’s New York Times is titled, “Memos Spell Out Brutal C.I.A. Mode of Interrogation.” The banner story describes the release of memos by the Justice Department in the Bush administration requested and used to justify harsh techniques used by the C.I.A.

The memos read like something you would expect from Saddam Hussein, not from the liberators of  his regime. They are cruel and cold in their precision and even part of the Obama administration argued against their release.

Apparently, you can legally deprive a captive of sleep for 11 days, you can douse them with water of 41 degrees, you can waterboard for 40 seconds… This is like the stuff you would see in the Holocaust museum, not the annals of the U.S. government.

Mentioned in passing is the fact that the United States prosecuted Japanese interrogators for similar techniques after World War II.

President Obama has said he will not prosecute agents for carrying out these techniques because he wants to look forward and not back. Perhaps, he should have said, “They were just following orders.”

Even if they are given a pass, I don’t see how we can hold up our head again as a nation unless we prosecute the authors of the memos. They are listed with profiles in The Times as Jay S. Bybee, John Yoo, Jack Goldsmith, James B. Comey and Steven G. Bradbury.