I almost agree.

But not quite. There's been a big fuss in Washington lately about the CIA. It seems that they destroyed videotapes of interrogations of terror suspects. Reading between the lines, I'd say that the CIA destroyed the tapes for two reasons: to conceal the fact that they were torturing people and to conceal other methods--not to mention the interrogators' identities. Apparently, they did this against the advice of the White House counsel's office, so I think we need to acknowledge that the administration can't be blamed for this one (that's a nice change, isn't it?).

Since we can't blame the President and his staff for this one, let's set aside the political rhetoric and look at what the real issues are. First, the CIA is rightly concerned that they may be held accountable for torture once the current administration leaves office. Can we pretty please stop the torture? Even if you call it by other names like "waterboarding" or "attention slap", it's still torture and cruelty. How can we be a people that tortures?

Second, if you set aside the question about the torture, I agree about destroying records. The CIA should destroy records regarding sources and methods. Intelligence methods aren't safe and secure without keeping the people who do them secret, along with their methods.