No More Debate: Impeachment and War Crimes Charges NOW

More debate "erupts" -- "bitter" debate even:

The disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions on interrogation on Thursday set off a bitter round of debate over the treatment of terrorism suspects in American custody and whether Congress has been adequately informed of legal policies.

Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded to see the classified memorandums, disclosed Thursday by The New York Times, that gave the Central Intelligence Agency expansive approval in 2005 for harsh interrogation techniques.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to the acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004.

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Mr. Rockefeller wrote.

And possibly the most twisted perversion of truth and morality I have heard to date from anyone in this administration:

Administration officials said Thursday that there was no contradiction between the still-secret rulings and an opinion made public by the Justice Department in December 2004 that declared torture “abhorrent” and appeared to retreat from the administration’s earlier assertion of broad presidential authority to conduct harsh interrogations.

At a briefing, Ms. Perino said that it was “quite a testament to this country” that six years after the Sept. 11 attacks “we are still having a debate” about treating prisoners, but that “we don’t torture them.”

I understand what you're saying, Dana. It's a wonderfully special country we live in where we can torture people and still be free to say how outrageous it is that we torture people.

President Bush, she added, “has done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country.”

"Within the corners of the law" that Pres. Bush and his associates have rewritten to permit the use of torture by coming up with a list of specific procedures they want to use and declaring that those procedures are not torture.

But the time for "debate" is over, no matter how "bitter" that debate is or how much it "erupts." The time for demanding to see memos, knowing demands will be refused and you will take it no further, is over. The time for using terms like "extremely troubling" to describe documents secretly authorizing simulated drowning and keeping naked prisoners in freezing cold cells for days while rock music blares nonstop at ear-splitting volume, is over. The time for accepting the lies of lying press secretaries who say, straight-faced, that the U.S. does not torture people when clearly, unarguably, and unquestionably, the U.S. does exactly that, is over.

The time for articles of impeachment to be drawn up and war crimes charges to be filed is now.