One thing that comes through in the torture memos released yesterday is the fact that there were a hell of a lot of people involved in this state-sponsored-torture:

Besides the interrogators, “medical and psychological personnel are on-scene throughout (and, as detailed below, physically present or otherwise observing during the application of many techniques, including all techniques involving physical contact with detainees)” (p. 7.) Batteries of physical and psychological exams are given. Elaborate interrogation plans are submitted for approval, and detailed records are kept.

And most, if not all, of these people are still in the employ of the federal government. Most of them insisting with great depth of feeling that they did nothing wrong, that they are entirely responsible for keeping the country safe.

Which is why it is so vitally important that the Obama administration make it as crystal clear as possible that the torture that the Bush administration engaged in is absolutely unacceptable and never to be repeated. And there’s only one way to do that—to prosecute those who deserve to be prosecuted for turning the U.S. into a nation of proud and unapologetic torturers.

We have to — all of us, the whole damn nation — realize the full horror of what was done in our name, so that we come away muttering fiercely to ourselves: “Never again!”

It’s fine if Obama doesn’t want to go after those who are at the lower end of the torture totem-pole. But he jolly well needs to go after someone, to hold someone responsible.

Because without high-visibility prosecutions — and the public shaming of the torturers that such prosecutions will lead to — it’s pretty much guaranteed that those who proudly participated in torture yesterday will do so again in some tomorrow or the other.

And whether Obama likes it or not, it is now his responsibility to ensure that that tomorrow never arrives. It’s time he started acting like the buck stops there.