Holy freaking crap. No, really. I come home from a beautiful sunny walk this morning to this headline: Memo: Two al Qaeda leaders waterboarded 266 times.

I don’t care what your excuse is, President Obama – I don’t care what your reasoning is in terms of looking forward instead of looking back. As much as I have disagreed with your policy to not go looking for prosecutions of those committing war crimes during the Bush administration (and as bloody angry as it has made me), that disagreement and disapproval is nothing to the sickness and rage I felt when I read that headline.

Pardon my French, but two-hundred-and-sixty-six fucking times?????

Once is unforgivable. Once is torture. Two-hundred-and-sixty-six fucking times???????

Abomination is not a strong enough word.

I don’t care how evil these guys are. There must be consequences. MUST. And you must pursue them right now – yesterday, if possible.

I applaud you for releasing the information, because the truth needs the light of day and facts are better than dark speculation. Maybe you released the information so that you could do something about it, I’m not sure. I am not surprised that the Cheney-Bush administration did this, but then, neither were you. Neither is anybody with a brain.

But if you do not prosecute those involved, if you do not tell the world (which we are frankly lucky to have be willing to speak with us at all after the last eight years) that we recognize these egregious sins as a nation and we are willing to pay the consequences in the world community, I guarantee that we will pay the consequences in other ways.

I know you feel you need the support of the intelligence community – and you do – but having the intelligence community call your shots is not better than having the defense industry call the prior administration’s.

If you do not do something about this, you make us all less safe. You make your citizens abroad less safe (I’ve never pulled the “I’m a Canadian” trick when travelling, but I may have to next time) and you make your citizens at home less safe. Torturing people by waterboarding them more than 100 times (?!?##@$????) does not act as a deterrent – it acts as an invitation for revenge and a spark for an inferno of anger by people who already see us as unjust, greedy, self-centered, wicked. And we are. But we also have better angels – we can be just, fair, giving, ethical, appropriately introspective. We can admit that terrible things were done in our name, and we can accept the blame for that. And we can stop history from repeating itself.

This door to torture, Mr. Obama, cannot be left open. Cannot.

Do something about this, Mr. President. I’ve seen you speak, and it inspired me to spend precious hours away from my new baby to do what I could to ensure you were elected. I know you can make a strong statement, I know you can fight this fight. I know you can say that this is what was done in our name and it was terrible and it was horrid and it was abominable and it was wrong and it is not what the world should expect from us.

I know you can make a loud and clear nostra maxima culpa for all of us. You may have been reluctant to do it, to open that Pandora’s Box before. Now that you have opened it, do the right thing,

It is time for those who did this in our name to pay the consequences, and for us to accept the discomfort of dealing with our recent past.

It is not a choice. We must.