Lawyers apparently have always been legal assholes.
From Roman third-century lawyer, Ulpian, on torture: “The strong will resist and the weak will say anything to end the pain.” Yet to torture is a righteous path: “…the torment and suffering of the body in order to elicit the truth.”

Despite the recorded fact that torture does not work, the US for a time used torture as a form of state-sponsored interrogation techniques, and most-naturally achieved/gained nothing.
And with President Obama turning his back on cleaning up/putting behind us this horrible, dark-sided episode in US history, the attempt for any kind of justice most likely will come from beyond the Americas.

(Illustration found here).

And so it goes.
On Monday, the noted Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into George Jr. and all his waterboarding cronies for using torture for years in a fools errand of the war on terror.
In a 107-page report, “Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees,” (PDF), HRW says there’s “overwhelming evidence” to support such an inquiry.
From the press release accompanying the report:

“There are solid grounds to investigate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Tenet for authorizing torture and war crimes,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“President Obama has treated torture as an unfortunate policy choice rather than a crime. His decision to end abusive interrogation practices will remain easily reversible unless the legal prohibition against torture is clearly reestablished.”
…
“The US has a legal obligation to investigate these crimes,” Roth said. “If the US doesn’t act on them, other countries should.”
…
Human Rights Watch said that the US government’s failure to investigate US officials for the torture and ill-treatment of detainees undermines US efforts to press for accountability for human rights violations abroad.
“The US is right to call for justice when serious international crimes are committed in places like Darfur, Libya, and Sri Lanka, but there should be no double standards,” Roth said.
“When the US government shields its own officials from investigation and prosecution, it makes it easier for others to dismiss global efforts to bring violators of serious crimes to justice.”

The HRW report cites words from George Jr.’s own big mouth: George Tenet asked if he had permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.…“Damn right,” I said — George W. Bush 2010.

One also must remember what a lying asshole is George Jr.
This way-ironic statement from the little shit in June 2003 entitled, ‘United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture‘ (h/t Crooks and Liars):

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.
I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.
I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.
I further urge governments to join America and others in supporting torture victims’ treatment centers, contributing to the UN Fund for the Victims of Torture, and supporting the efforts of non-governmental organizations to end torture and assist its victims.

And also keep in the memory that when George Jr. made that heart-touching, bowel-movement above, torture was state of the art: It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

And what were George Jr.’s goons seeking?
From a Mcclatchy piece in April 2009 (also the source of the paragraph above) on the answer to that burning question: …in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime…

Of course, this bit of evidence was non-existent.

And to show how totally, and completely fucked-up this country has become was revealed in a most erroneous, dumb-ass lie that popped up this past weekend from new DOD honcho Leon Panetta while in Iraq:

“The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda,” Panetta told about 150 soldiers at the Camp Victory US base.
“We’ve been fighting as a result of that,” he said.

There is overwhelming evidence that no one in charge has any morals or ethics or brains.
All must be tortured souls.