I have said it before and I'll say it again. We as a country hit rock bottom when the Bush administration began using torture in the post-9/11 world. International law makes it illegal to use torture, and experts believe that nothing good will come out of any torture session because the victim will say anything to stop the excruciating pain. Our use of torture can only result in reciprocal torture against American soldiers.

News is emerging that torture was approved by the highest levels of the Bush administration. Makes sense. President Bush is too dumb to know any better, and he is being advised by some very malignant people, like the Vice President. The tragedy of September 11 is now being used as an excuse to justify anything, anything at all, like the foolish Iraq war, saber-rattling against Iran, the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars for the Iraq quagmire, and torture.

This week, the media reported that the "torture memos" written by the Bush administration's highest-ranking lawyer suggested in 2003 that laws against torture cannot trump the President's war-time powers. The New York Times story is below. This argument only encourages a constitutional dictatorship, where the President can exempt himself from any laws that he chooses. Apparently, the government's analysis in this regard is not limited to the Iraq war. It is now American foreign policy. In the late-1970's, a disgraced Richard M. Nixon told an interviewer, in words and substance, "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal." This is why Nixon resigned: he was a pathological criminal with zero conscience who bombed and killed hundreds of thousands of people during the Vietnam war and subverted the U.S. Constitution in covering up the Watergate crime. Bush is the new Nixon. Whatever he does is legal. No questions asked.

Is the Bush administration ashamed at these relevations? No. One of the war planners, Douglas Feith, said that only "assholes" are worried about torture. Feith, with blood on his hands and one-way ticket to the flames of hell for promoting the Iraq war, a killer who easily could been a serial killer in another lifetime, has been rewarded with a distinguished university professorship.

Memo Sheds New Light on Torture Issue By DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — A newly disclosed Justice Department legal memorandum, written in March 2003 and authorizing the military’s use of extremely harsh interrogation techniques, offers what could be a revealing clue in an unsolved mystery: What responsibility did top Pentagon and Bush administration officials have for abuses committed by American troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Afghanistan; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and elsewhere?

Some legal experts and advocates said Wednesday that the document, written the month that the United States invaded Iraq, adds to evidence that the abuse of prisoners in military custody may have involved signals from higher officials and not just irresponsible actions by low-level personnel.

The opinion was written by John C. Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel, the executive branch’s highest authority on the interpretation of the law. It told the Pentagon’s senior leadership that inflicting pain would not be considered torture unless it caused “death, organ failure or permanent damage,” and it is the most fully developed legal justification that has yet come to light for inflicting physical and mental pressure on suspects.

While resembling an August 2002 memorandum drafted largely by Mr. Yoo, the March 2003 opinion went further, arguing more explicitly that the president’s war powers could trump the law against torture, which it said could not constitutionally be enforced if it interfered with the commander in chief’s orders.