Bush Admits to Okaying torture

President Bush has recently admitted to okaying the waterboarding of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In the president’s own words, “Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed … I’d do it again to save lives.”
Bush’s admittance has sparked outrage across America with groups like Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others. There are many who fear that the former president’s actions are taking us down a slippery slope; they fear that we have lost our moral integrity and that we are failing to keep with international law.
According to an interview on Huffington Post, former Brigadier General David Irvine, who taught military interrogation for 20 years, doesn’t agree with Bush and believes the United States will feel the global repercussions of his decisions for years to come.
“When he decided to do it the first time, he launched the nation down a disastrous road, and we will continue to pay dearly for the damage his decision has caused,” Irvine said.
So what’s the truth? Are we really going down a “dangerous course”? Can we afford to be moral during a time of war? Does morality really have a place in modern warfare? And who decides it’s the right action when lives may or may not be in jeopardy?
I know it can be easy to judge President Bush as evil or a terrible person. Waterboarding isn’t pleasant; it’s horrible. It’s torture, and no one in their right mind can argue with that. But I ask you, if you knew that there was just even a sliver of chance that torturing a man who master minded the killing of thousands of Americans may save lives, would you do it?
Would you take that responsibility? For the chance to save a life? Is it really that easy of a decision? Can you morally take the responsibility of saying “no” to waterboarding, failing to get the information we need and then watching tens of thousands of Americans die in another 9/11 attack? Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed really worth more than the lives of our neighbors?
Now I’m not saying I would choose to torture or waterboard anyone, all I’m saying is that Bush had a hard decision to make under intense pressure from Al Qaeda, the first group of people to attack America since the Japanese. Do you or I really have any right to judge this decision until we have walked in his shoes?
I know I would do anything I thought might save American lives – that’s who I am. You may disagree with me, but I just can’t imagine letting intelligence of this magnitude go to waste under these circumstances. I don’t approve of torture, I just approve of protecting lives.