If you believe that torture was done in the name of America and those responsible for it (no mater which political side) should be punished if found guilty, then we are on the same side.

What I have read on here by the right is not that…. what I am reading on here is torturing in the name of America is "no big deal" and shouldnt be investigated because of the economy.

that is NOT my side. 

Diamond, thanks as ever for posting right wing talking points (although sourcing would be nice). Just to clear the palette after all that b.s., here are some facts:

MYTH #1: WE DIDN’T TORTURE: One of the most stale lines from the Bush administration was the robotic response to any discussion about torture. "We did not torture," administration officials repeated over and over. The recently-disclosed OLC memos, however, lay that debate to rest, particularly with their authorization of waterboarding.Yet some on the right are continuing to provide political cover for the administration’s law-breaking. Former State Department official Liz Cheney, a daughter of Dick Cheney, claimed last week that waterboarding is not torture because similar tactics were used on U.S. troops in SERE training. "Everything that was done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SERE training," she said. But CIA interrogators "used much larger volumes of water" while waterboarding the detainees, leading the CIA Inspector General to conclude that such waterboarding was "neither efficacious or medically safe." Furthermore, U.S. soldiers undergoing SERE training presumably understood there were limits to their experiences undergoing water torture, whereas CIA interrogators waterboarded detainees hundreds of times in one month. In fact, as early as 2002, the military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency warned that the Bush administration’s interrogation program was "torture" and that it would produce "unreliable information."

MYTH #2: HARSH INTERROGATION WORKED: The right wing has been trying to frame the debate over torture as a simple question of whether torture "worked" to prevent terrorist attacks. Several, including Bush and Cheney, have claimed that torturing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) helped them foil a plan to blow up the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles.  But "an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush’s characterization of it as a ‘disrupted plot’ was ‘ludicrous’ — that plot was foiled in 2002. But KSM wasn’t captured until March 2003," Slate’s Tim Noah noted. The torture debate has also focused on Abu Zubaydah, a detainee who allegedly disclosed "the fact that KSM was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks" to the CIA only after he was tortured, according to former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen. But Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator who worked closely with Zubaydah, said the FBI "extracted crucial intelligence — including the identity of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the architect of 9/11 and the dirty-bomb plot of Jose Padilla — before CIA contractors even began their aggressive tactics." Zubaydah also "had a schizophrenic personality"; his diaries were written in the voices of three distinct personalities. "How, then, did the C.I.A. conclude that Zubaydah was mentally fit enough to withstand the Agency’s coercive techniques?" the New Yorker’s Justin Vogt asked. 

MYTH #3: NO NEED FOR ACCOUNTABILITY: Several conservatives have also protested the idea of a commission or prosecutions of Bush officials who gave legal cover for torture. Former White House press secretary Dana Perino referred to an investigation as a "political witch hunt." "[M]aybe there’s an element of setting old political scores here," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said yesterday. But as journalist Mark Danner observed, "The mystique of torture will only disappear once a cold hard light has been shone on it by trustworthy people who can examine all the evidence and speak to the country with authority." Indeed, what transpired under Bush violates both U.S. statute and international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory, and an investigation is needed to prevent future abuses of the law. As a first step to achieving accountability, Center for American Progress Action Fund President and CEO John Podesta called for the impeachment of 9th Circuit Court Judge Jay Bybee yesterday. When he was a former top Bush administration lawyer, Bybee signed off on the notorious torture tactics seen in recently-disclosed OLC memos. "Bybee has neither the legal nor moral authority to sit in judgment of others," Podesta wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Commitee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI).

Yes Diamond…thank you. They tried to hide from view what does not support their contention that Bush is to blame for whatever Obama can not fix, or handle.

The day Obama runs out of blame is the day that the other shoes drops….Obama is the one alright…the one BIG LIE.

It is also more than a bit artful to say that the US executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding when in fact the most that can be said about those who werre executed is that some of the charges against some of them included waterboarding but there were many otrher much more serious charges.

That is a lovely sentiment, but it isnt quite true. Here is the full story on what Im going to be commenting on.  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/235/  History supports McCain’s stance on waterboarding

R. John Pritchard, a historian and lawyer who is a top scholar on the trials, said the Japanese felt the ends justified the means. "The rapid and effective collection of intelligence then, as now, was seen as vital to a successful struggle, and in addition, those who were engaged in torture often felt that whatever pain and anguish was suffered by the victims of torture was nothing less than the just deserts of the victims or people close to them," he said.

Sound familiar? Those people were put to death.

There was also a case of a Japanese officer that was prosecuted for waterboarding an American civilian….. there were no other charges…. but hanging was his punishment…… if you want the story, let me know and Ill find the link for you, or you could google it.

We cant treat Americans different just because they are Americans…… Im not saying that anyone should be prosecuted or not…. but it all should be investigated….. if during the investigation they discover wrong doings, all should be punished…… if no wrong doings then it should end…. but to say it should end before the truth is knows, is jusifying criminal activity.

Good post S Shaw…Roger has put a spin on your post…but his quote really subtantiates your point. How they do try to twist things…..

The Japanese certainly did not adhear to the strict guidelines that the Nation Security Council agreed on for waterboarding. Indeed.."more than a bit artful"…out and out lies as usual.