Just War...and by "war" I mean "waterboarding"

Over at the League, I argued (in the comments to E.D.Kain's post) that imperialist Presidents have become so mainly by the fact that since its inception, the War Powers Act has been used as Presidential Toilet Paper.

My thesis, I guess, is that when the War Powers Act was actually honored, for example when Congress demanded Bush show justification for the 2002 Iraq Resolution, Bush responded by sending Cheney to Guantanamo to extract an al-Qaeda tie to Iraq out of the detainees there.
In case that sentence was too convoluted let me rephrase:

I believe the reason for the Bush Administration's torture policy was in order to provide the "just war" evidence in order to satisfy the War Powers Act.

Doesn't it make sense that Bush, for whatever reason, decided to go after Saddam, then, when Congress actually honored the WPA wording requiring clear justification for the President's military action, Bush made a desperation move and attempted to extract the required evidence from detainees?

The point I am going for here is that if the CIA, or anyone else, cannot produce evidence tying al-Qaeda to Iraq (in sufficient quantity to justify the invasion), then according the the War Powers Act, former President Bush has broken the law, and contracted the United States into an illegal war. For that he should be prosecuted. For the 4,000 dead American G.I.'s, and for the billions (trillions) of taxpayer dollars illegally spent in Iraq.

Personally, the idea that torture is okay offends and disappoints me. It's like cheating. To me, torture is like when you are playing trivial pursuit and you get a question about which you know nothing, but instead of just going "dang, your turn" instead you grab the wrist of the person and demand they let you see the card, and you randomly select an answer off the back of the card and announce that is the answer, give yourself another wedge, and take another turn. And then wonder why the other players despise you.

Or perhaps torture is so awful to me because it reminds me of the crowd standing around Jesus while he is up on the cross, taunting him as he suffers.

Or perhaps torture is so awful to me because I am an evolutionist and I know that our species, despite being the only one to harness the power of the atom, is also the only one to have evolved methods for torture. Show me the species of ant that captures enemy ants (they do that) and takes them to a secure location (they do that too) and then tortures the enemy ants to reveal the location of their food source (they don't do that).

I think Jesse (The Mind) Ventura summed up my thoughts best:

Jesse Ventura: I would prosecute every person who was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it, I would prosecute the people that ordered it, because torture is against the law."

Larry King: You were a Navy SEAL...

Jesse Ventura: Yes, and I was waterboarded [in training] so I know... It is torture...I'll put it to you this way: You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

I probably just eliminated any chance of ever running for office as a Republican by saying that. But it need be said.
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