We can all rationalize anything if we like.
We can say something like... If an Al-Qeada group sets fire to a US military camp then it's OK to go burn down one of their civilian villages because the civilians will probably get out in time.
But it's still not right and should not and is not moral or legal... it's simply a rage & revenge response to a bad thing.
And a couple other points. Waterboarding didn't stop any major attack like 9-11. It might have gave up a couple players or gave some nebulous information about smaller plans but it's not at all like people on the Right would like to portray it to seem to justify it.
This wasn't some version of the TV show 24. When you saw the Abu Ghraib pics did that soldier girl with the cigarette hanging out the side of her mouth with the dog collar & leash on the prisoners neck with womans panties on their head look like Jack Bower to you? Seriously?
It wasn't anything like... The nuclear briefcase bomb is with Abdul in Atlanta at some motel and we know Rajah knows the address. It just simply wasn't like that at all.
All they were doing was using torture techniques to get the same kind of information one side or another would want in any regular POW situation. We don't torture POW's (well now after Bush I'm not sure at all that's even true) but we're not supposed to, and we shouldn't have tortured these military detainees either.
Bush got away with something here. President Obama stopped it. I have mixed feelings about a prosecution... but I hope the country remembers who did what.
