Nicholas Kristof is asking each of the presidential candidates to commit to a Truth Commission (modelled after South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee) early in the next administration. This commission would be to investigate claims like

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.

We all know that the people responsible will never be held accountable but perhaps, by making public what they did, we can prevent them from happening again.