This moment is about as American as it gets in the United States, from where I write. The exemplary release of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the CIA’s brutal interrogation techniques reflects the finest practice of citizen oversight of government executive and security agencies, truly one of the United States’ great gifts to the world. At the same time, the revelations of torture and deception at the highest levels of government reflect the worst practices of police states and authoritarian despots.

So is the United States the shining republic, or just another banana republic? Is this a moment of pride or shame for Americans? Right now it seems to be a bit of both, but how it emerges in the longer term remains to be seen. I deeply admire the fact that the Senate committee carried out the multiyear investigation into the CIA’s practices and then agreed with the president to release the executive summary of its findings. The fundamental reason for doing so has been the right of the American people to know what is being done by their government in their name.

Regardless of the awkward, awful and even criminal findings of the report, this episode affirms the central idea to which the American revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and 240 years of democratic governance experience have given life: the consent of the governed. This means that citizens rule by choosing their government every few years, and by holding it accountable at every moment through the institutions of the rule of law, a free press, an independent judiciary, peaceful protest, and legislative oversight.

Will this example of democracy at work prove more lasting and productive than similar previous revelations of misconduct by officials or security agencies? The report’s findings and the intense discussions now taking place across the country are not unique, so it is fair to ask whether its publication will trigger the positive changes that most citizens would desire to see.

The U.S. has published similar reports or revealed other misconduct – such as massacres in Vietnam, criminal conduct and cover-ups in the White House, illegal domestic spying on private citizens, or racist denials of equal rights to all citizens – often without subsequent strong action to prevent such things from recurring. So the American system is being tested once again. Most admirably, it is testing itself.

The discussions since the report’s release on Tuesday have mostly centered on several issues: whether the CIA methods constituted “torture”; how honestly and fully the CIA briefed the executive branch and the congressional oversight committees; and whether the interrogations were effective in providing information that truly served American legitimate national security interests, by helping to capture Al-Qaeda operatives or to avert other terror attacks. The public discussions themselves are a critical dimension of rule by the citizenry.

Time will tell if definitive legal safeguards will be installed to prevent recurrences of torture and deception, and whether those who are identified as having acted improperly and illegally will be held accountable in a credible manner.

I would add that two other questions that should be answered in the months and years ahead. The first is about the legality, morality and efficacy of other war-making techniques that the U.S. continues to use today. These include assassinating scores of people around the world via drone-fired missiles, and holding detainees for many years, without legal safeguards. These and other such issues are not only about legality, legitimacy or efficacy. They define the bigger fundamental issue of how an imperial-minded U.S. uses its immense global military and technological capabilities in any ways it sees fit, and justifies anything it does simply by claiming pre-emptive self-defense in the face of imminent attacks.

The second issue that desperately needs discussion and action in our part of the world is about the roles that Middle Eastern countries played in capturing, detaining, interrogating, torturing or transporting detainees that the U.S. sought, and in many cases took to Guantanamo prison.

A 2013 report by the Open Society Foundations’ Justice Initiative, titled “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition,” charged that 54 governments participated in the CIA’s program of “extraordinary rendition.” This included 11 states in the Middle East (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen). These are serious charges that deserve more public discussion in these countries, because if the charges are correct they reflect a double failure in our societies: the unethical and criminal act of participating in torture activities, and the politically subservient behavior of supine colonial subjects who perform any act – regardless of its legality or morality – demanded by the distant power they cannot resist.

Will we speak of or try to repair our own criminal and imperial collusions nearly as openly as the U.S. addresses its own?