The Healthy Man does not Torture Others - Generally it Is the Tortured Who Turn into Torturers

Dick Cheney, referred to callously and humorously by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs as "the next most popular member of the Republican cabal (second to Rush Limbaugh)," has been seen more in the two months since leaving office than in the entire eight years he was serving as vice president. He has been defending the former administration's stance on torture vigorously.

When he was asked if he thought Obama has made Americans less safe by suspending military trials for suspected terrorists, announcing he will close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as overseas sites where the CIA has held some detainees, ordering CIA interrogators to abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual regulations for treatment of detainees and denouncing waterboarding as torture, he replied:

"I do. I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11. I think that's a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles. President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack."

As ludicrous as that statement is to me, there are people who believe him when he says that and there are people who are truly committed to the idea that the only way America will be safe is to kill them all before they can do anything to us. I am hopeful that one day Cheney will be perched in a courtroom and a lawyer will get him to admit that he indeed ordered the Code Red.

And lo and behold, what did I read in the New York Times? A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As of right now, the men soon to be investigated are Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General; John Yoo, former Justice Department lawyer (who wrote secret legal opinions saying the president had the authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions); Douglas Feith, former under secretary of defense for policy; William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, Mr. Yoo's former boss at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David Addington, who was the chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Spain has legal jurisdiction under the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which both Spain and the United States are bound to adhere to, because five citizens or residents of Spain were held at Guantánamo Bay and claim they were tortured. While this is mostly a symbolic gesture, it might to lead to action by the United States government against the former administration to at least ascertain the accountability. And if they can ascertain accountability, the truth may actually come out that these lawyers were influenced or coerced to mold legal opinions around political malfeasance.

There Is no such Thing as Morality or Immorality in Thought. There Is Immoral Emotion.

It's been a month since I have written. This is mostly due to the beautiful weather that we have been experiencing in Colorado recently. We have topped 80 degrees a few times in the past few weeks and most days of have been well over 60 degrees and sunny. This has allowed me to get my son out to the park and into the backyard to play baseball and basketball. Basically, I've been having too much fun to settle down at the keyboard and write.

But today is a spring blizzard here in the Denver area. We are expected to get between 10 and 18 inches of snow and my son's sandbox and all of its contents are now pinned up against our fence as a result of the gale force wind whipping through my backyard. What a great day to put on a movie for my son and sneak away to rail against AIG.

Actually, I am going to take the opposite view of this current maelstrom: Pay them their bonuses! The righteous indignation spewing out of Washington about this is ridiculous, highlighted by Senator Grassley's (Rep.-Iowa) suggestion that the AIG executives who earned these bonuses should "follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

Politics is full of sideshows and grandstanding. Senators and Congressmen and -women love to get in front of the camera and take a safe position that most people will agree with. They revel in the glory of their sound bytes and video clips of them scolding the offending parties that are broadcast on the evening news and CNN. They love to pretend they are the hero looking out for the American people, but they are just publicity hounds with no more scruples than any of the people they seek to punish.

If AIG had contracts with these people based on certain goals and numbers and they reached those, then pay them. They earned those bonuses based on the parameters of their contracts.

It is mind boggling that people could earn bonuses when the company lost so much money that it was on the precipice of bankruptcy, but that is exactly what happened. Over-taxing those bonuses and nullifying those contracts is a decision that is far more dangerous and costly than the $165 million spent on those bonuses.

In the future, these executives should be held to a higher standard for overall results of the company, but to take away the money they earned, regardless of how foolish and short-sighted the contracts are, is immoral.