Getting lost in all the noise in the media over the Bush torture program is a clear analysis of the actual arguments put forth by the Bush administration for these techniques. There seems to be three basic arguments.

1. The detainees are not covered under the Geneva Convention.
2. The techniques being used are not torture.
3. High value information was gained by using these techniques.

The problem is, these are not arguments for the need to commit these acts. They are instead arguments made in defense of these acts. In other words, this is nothing more than an outline for a jury nullification defense. Bush and Cheney and the OLC lawyers are simply asking the American people to absolve them of any guilt because it was special circumstances that required special rules.   I believe a person makes a decision to torture because they are inclined to torture. If you are willing to try hard enough there is always another way. The Bush administration, however, seemed to be inclined towards torture.  There is, in fact, a very finite number of reasons why a government or individual would actually torture another human being. None of them are reason enough, in my opinion, but here they are:

1. They enjoy it.
2. As cruel and unusual punishment.
3. To get a confession and they don’t really care if it’s true or not.
4. The belief that it is the only way to get specific life saving information. (the Jack Bower argument)
5. They are “fishing” for some undetermined piece of information a prisoner might or might not have.

Let us assume that the first two are not applicable in this case (at least we hope so). As  for reason, #3, since the Bush administration never showed any inclination to actually prosecute any of the detainees, we can probably also set this one aside.  That leaves the two critical information arguments. With some simple analysis, however, we can narrow this down to only one plausible reason. If there was in fact a single life saving piece of information that the government needed to get, then I believe we would have heard all the pertinent details already. Since no such details have been presented either on the record or off, then it is fair to assume that there was no Jack Bower scenario in play here. To further debunk this as an argument, the recent disclosure that  Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times over a one month period and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times over another long month of interrogation seems to indicate that there was no ticking clock counting down to doomsday. These individuals, at least, were being tortured simply as a fishing expedition to see if they had anything else to tell.

If the sole motive behind torture is a vague idea that if you push hard enough you might get more information out of these people, then that makes the Bush administration no better then the Gestapo, the NKVD or the Spanish Inquisition. Their defense of torture is simply an attempt to get us, as a country, to look away and ignore the horrors of torture. Vice President Cheney, in particular, is eager to claim that the ends justify the means. If this was the case, however, then any means could be justified. If waterboarding doesn’t work lets try electro-shock treatment. After all, it is still used today on thousands of psychiatric patients who volunteer for the procedure. Just like the soldiers in seer training who volunteered for waterboarding. Of course, you could go on and on further down that path until we reach a pit of moral depravity so deep we can never find our way out. Where does Dick Cheney draw the line? Where do we?

If we do, as some have said, put this behind us and move on, then we will not absolve these men of their acts but only share in the shame. They did what they did because they were frightened and scared of the dark. That’s understandable. We were all a little scared of the dark after 9-11. Being frightened, however, is no defense for willfully inflicting pain on another human being over and over again for days and weeks, no matter how evil we think that person is or how much high value information he might have. Until the Bush administration, our country had never made torture part of our official policy. If we want to make sure that we, as a country, never do this again, we have to face our fears and stand up and defend ourselves against those who attacked our nation’s ideas of liberty and justice and lawfulness while pretending to defend them.