To Torture or Not to Torture?

For the die hard brush cutters out there here is a piece of news you can sink your machete in. The Torturer in Chief  publicly admitted that he committed a war crime by ordering the torture of Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  A defiant Bush told Fox Spews Brit Hume that he personally ordered the water boarding of the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He said in the interview that the torture was necessary to "save American lives"[1].  However his claims of necessity are undermined by professional intelligence agents who have consistently said torture rarely produces good, actionable intelligence.  A Pentagon intelligence analyst who read the reports of Khalid's interrogation said that "90% of it was total fucking bullshit". Nevertheless, it seems that the newly elected administration of Barrack Obama is already at odds with itself over the fundamental question of whether to prosecute former government officials for war crimes.  Obama has made statements clearly indicating his desire to focus on the monumental economic problems facing the nation, but his newly appointed chief of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen, said the administration should avoid any temptation to "simply move on".    If  you ask Joe the Plumber, aka Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, torture would not even get reported.  Sent to Israel for propaganda purposes by a right wing organization, Joe said, "I'll be honest with you. I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed in war...I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. God help us.

[1] Under the Nuremberg Principles (III, IV)promulgated by the Allies at the end of WWII, the fact that  a war crime under international law was committed by a head of state does not relief him of responsibility nor does the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his government or a superior if a moral choice was possible.