In one of the confessional prayers in the Episcopal Church, the above phrase comes up. There's room for plenty of repentance today, given the (eleventh hour) release of the summary of the Senate investigation into the CIA interrogation processes after 9/11.
The results should surprise nobody, though they seem even somewhat worse than what was known (so much for the "Well, we already know everything, so why dredge over this again?" — a denial that also flies in the face of those who are still defending these actions as both necessary and trivial).
By the way, that whole "No, it's not true, there were some plots this torture — er, enhanced interrogation actually uncovered" argument? That "We did what we needed to for our survival" argument? To quote (http://wist.info/mann-abby/2659/) the movie Judgment at Nuremberg, "Survival as what?"
“I don’t believe that any other nation would go to the lengths the United States does to bare its soul, admit mistakes when they are made and learn from those mistakes. Certainly, no one can imagine such an effort by any of the adversaries we face today,” said [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper.
Well, bully for us. Twist enough arms, force it through after six years of stonewalling and pontificating and denial and threats of how releasing this information it will cause people to react violently and with the full likelihood that in another month there would have been zero chance of the report ever coming out … and, yeah, we bare our soul (well, the summary of it, since the full soul-baring is still classified), we admit mistakes (except for those who still insist no mistakes were made), and we learn from those mistakes (the number one thing being learned is that nobody has, or will, serve any prison time for giving or executing these orders).
Short of further sackcloth and ashes, I commend to you Charles Pierce:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Torture_Report_And_What_It_Says
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Torture_Report_And_What_It_Means
Senate report on CIA torture claims spy agency lied about ‘ineffective’ program
Report released by Senate after four-year, $40m investigation concludes CIA repeatedly lied about brutal techniques in years after 9/11
Trivial and necessary… that's not how to spell "Frivolous and contrary to desired outcomes".