I never miss Keith O.I always have to say that.

LETS GET THE BASTARDS!!! HAHAHAHA

If any of Leahy's words are to have any substantive meaning then an "inquiry" alone will not do. The rule of law is what is at stake here and the law is exceptionally clear and straightforward on what is required by the United States which is:

1. All credible information about instances of torture must be investigated.

2. In every instance where prosecution is warranted, then prosecutions must proceed.

3. If a nation fails in it's obligation either to investigate or to prosecute where warranted then the other nations of the earth have the responsibility to bring the criminals to justice via investigation and prosecution themselves.

It really is that simple.

If America only has an "inquiry" aka "a show", but there are no actual criminal investigations or prosecutions where warranted then we are saying to the world that the law does not apply in America, that some men are, in fact, above the law and that we are no better than the worst regimes the world has seen in the past century because we allowed the very same methods used by the most notorious totalitarians in history to be used by our government and then upon discovering it refused to enforce the law.

This is serious business. It isn't an academic discussion. It isn't a discussion about policy. This is a discussion about whether or not the law means anything in the United States and whether war crimes committed by the United States will be allowed to go unpunished. The very idea that Americans discuss this matter as though investigation were one of several available legal options is surreal. All the talk here in America about doing anything in lieu of obeying our solemn treaty obligations is repellant to the civilized world as it most rightly should be. People here in the US are mistaken if they believe that the best course for the nation is to simply acknowledge, as the President put it, that we made a "mistake" and put it all behind us. If we choose to ignore these war crimes it will be the national equivalent of learning you have cancer, that it is treatable but not without risk, so you get the tumor removed, but then tell the doctor to sew you back up and do nothing more. You ignore the cancer and then proceed to act as though you didn't know you had cancer at all. For a time you would feel alright and could live your life in denial. But what would the result of such a course of action be? Well, eventually, it would kill you because the cancer would come back and be even worse, more virulent and deadly.

The sick and corrupt culture of Wshington DC (where stealing and lieing are a way of life) cannot be allowed to metastasize any further by sweeping these very serios crimes under the rug. We are a nation of laws and we claim that no one is above the law.

The ethical standard so many advocate now with respect to torture, of looking the other way and believing that is okay is the morality of a sick and depraved people. Civilized nations do not commit, permit, or submit to torture. That's a concept that has never been challenged in any civilized country tht respects human rights. There was a time when we were the nation foremost among those that fought for human rights as opposed to being in the forefront of abusing them.

Even the worst totalitarian regimes that used torture in the past had enough shame to at least deny it. We aren't even denying it! The whole world knows we did it and that the crooks of the Bush administration went to great lengths to create an elaborate albeit illegitimate and illegal edifice of legal "approval" to cover up the crimes and to protect the guilty both high and low.

Have we sunk so low that we are now so morally calloused we are no longer horrified by such atrocities? Has the soul of our nation grown so dark and cold that we have no longer have any conscience when it comes to war crimes? We're not talking about jaywalking here. We're talking about war crimes and the denial of the basic protections every civilized society is expected to afford to prisoners of all kinds. Have we completely lost our sense of decency? Have we no shame at all?

All of the discussion, all of the exceptions, all of the nuances and hairsplitting, all the political calculations, etc... are superfluous to the duty of the United States in this situation. It is simply wrong and immoral to discuss, dicker over, haggle about, and otherwise consider means of skirting the law on this subject. We must insist that the law be followed. That means that the first step is criminal investigations of all credible allegations/reports of torture. Nothing more or less should be acceptable to anyone interested in civilization, liberty and human rights.