The Tortured Logic of Bush and Cheney

After much anticipation, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a long-awaited report on the CIA's torture program following the terrorist attacks of September 11. Now we know unambiguously that by our own definitions and historic actions, George Bush and Dick Cheney should be tried as war criminals. There is not much subtlety here: The report summary states that the Bush administration initiated a torture program that was "in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations and our values."
Criminals of World War II and the War on Terror
Compare the Senate's report and what happened after we defeated Japan and Germany is clear. At the end of World War II, the Allies convened the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), better known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. From those trials we have victim testimony the torture; he is one example:

A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.

In modern vernacular, this is called waterboarding (referenced as "water treatment" by the tribunal). Whatever its designation, between 1946-1948, the IMTFE convicted 25 Japanese leaders for crimes against humanity, specifically including torture by waterboarding.
The Senate report documents numerous examples of waterboarding under the Bush administration. In one case, a detainee was waterboarded 83 times. Nobody denies that such waterboarding took place or that this form of torture was known to and condoned by Bush and Cheney. Bush openly admitted he authorized torture. Bush and Cheney remain unapologetic for the alleged (but openly acknowledged) crimes for which we have convicted and put to death our enemies following the end of the Second World War. So here we must ask a simple, straightforward question: By what rationale would we not try Bush and Cheney for the same crimes we convicted the Japanese? I challenge anybody to answer that question other than with the inevitable conclusion that we should indeed try Bush administration officials for war crimes. No, really, go ahead and explain why we should not try Bush and Cheney as war criminals.
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