So, there you have it. The CIA tortured hundreds if not thousands of people and hid behind the egregious euphemism of “enhanced interrogation.” Quelle surprise!

In further shock news Pontiff wears funny hat and ursine mammals defecate in arboreal surroundings.

The evidence published this week by a US Senate committee was indeed damning — as far as it went — detailing as it did, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, beatings and rectal force feeding among numerous other charming techniques routinely employed by the spooks.

However, it raises as many questions as it answers.

First, the committee only published 500 redacted pages of their overall report. A mere fraction of the whole document.

Appalling as the details that emerged were, what the hell is in the rest of it if what was published is seen as OK for the public to see.

As usual the smart money is firmly on the fact that they gave us just enough self-incriminating evidence to allow them to claim comprehensive disclosure without actually hanging themselves.

This is a gambit as old as, well, as old as torture itself. And apparently not a courtesy they were prepared to extend to their victims.

Having said this there is enough evidence here to mean the US could be hauled before the International Criminal Court for blatant breaches of the Geneva convention. Except for one small detail — the US refused to sign up to the ICC, no doubt for this very reason.

Second, we come to the somewhat vexatious claim that the government was misled as to what the CIA was doing.

You really expect us to buy that?

“Oh, well that’s OK then, sorry for your troubles.”

You see, it’s quite difficult to defend this claim when the then commander in chief, George Dubya Bush appeared on global television defending the use of the brutal methods and claiming waterboarding wasn’t torture.

It’s even more problematic when the US published a series of documents and memoranda which graphically showed not just exactly what was being done but also the extraordinary efforts the government’s lawyers went to in a bid to find loopholes that would allow them to claim that the methods weren’t technically torture.

They make chilling and surreal reading and are the epitome of what Hannah Arendt famously described as “the banality of evil.”

These are individuals attempting in cold, calculated language to decide just how much agony, brutality and psychological abuse can be inflicted on a victim before they — the US government — can no longer deny it is torture.

This would be disquieting even if it were merely an abstract philosophical discussion, and reading the documents it is clear that for some of them it is just that, but these are real lives they are dealing with in such a cynical fashion.

The obvious point here is that, if as they claim, the US government was unaware of the extent of the abuse being meted out there would have been no reason for this discussion to have occurred.

The government of a country whose constitution is at least partially drawn from The Rights of Man, seeking to abrogate the rights of others as merely an inconvenience.

It also emerged this week that all references to Britain’s role in the squalid scandal had been excised from the published document at the request of Number 10 for “national security” reasons.

Of course they were. And David Cameron is a man of principle.

But we don’t have to worry because Malcom Rifkind, chair of the intelligence and security committee, the most toothless watchdog since old blind Bess was taken out to the barn with a double-barrelled shotgun, said he had been “assured” that none of the redacted information showed Britain’s complicity.

The ISC — you will no doubt recall — also famously assured us, following their forensic examination of the facts, that there was absolutely no evidence that Britain had been involved in the US extraordinary rendition programme.

And then it turned out we were.

Torture is unique in the rule of international law in that there is total and utter prohibition on its use.

Article 2 of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, states that: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

The convention also states that any state which fails to act to prevent torture if there is reasonable suspicion that it is occurring is equally culpable.

Not much wriggle room there.

There is an old anecdote regarding a barrister and an infamous hanging judge taking a ride together one Sunday morning.

As they ride, they pass a gallows being erected in the square.

The Judge, notorious for donning the black cap for even the most minor offences, turns to the barrister and says, “Ah! Where would you be if the gallows took their due?”

“Riding alone M’lud,” retorts the barrister.

Which pretty much sums up this column’s attitude to both the US and Britain on this matter.