On the same day the Washington Post publishes an article on what a wonderful intelligence asset Khalid Sheik Mohammed became after he was shackled, diapered (as in left to hang in his own feces) sleep-deprived for 7 1/2 days and waterboarded 183 times [Marcy dismantles WaPo's "immoral and irresponsible article" here], the WaPo’s editor, Fred Hiatt, recommends that America invite two former Supreme Court Justices to chair an impartial inquiry to determine how well torture works:

Such a commission would investigate not just the Bush administration but the government, including Congress. It would give former vice president Dick Cheney a forum to make his case on the necessity of "enhanced interrogation techniques." It would examine the efficacy of such techniques, if any, and the question of whether, even if they work, waterboarding and other methods long considered torture ever can be justified.

Yes, that’s exactly what’s been missing, a public forum for Dick Cheney, until now thoroughly muzzled, to illustrate how well these techniques work. America could put this behind us if only Dick Cheney had another chance to explain how well torture has served the interests of the United States, improved its reputation, made itself proud, and set an example for how US forces should behave and how others should treat them.

Perhaps Dick could oversee demonstrations of various techniques, and explain how he and the sadists in the White House and the Justice Department supervised and choreographed each prisoner’s "program."

Of course, there would be a dispute about who to use as the illustrative victim in these demonstrations. The right would want to kidnap some innocent Pakistani or Afghani kid, or some undocumented family from Guatemala and have the Obama Administration render them to the Fox studios where the demonstations could be viewed live, following reruns of 24, with color commentary from Fox’s astute pundit panel.

Others, horrified at first, would soon get in the spirit, because that’s how this works. They might eventually suggest that perhaps the guinea pig should be John Yoo, Bybee, Addington, Rumsfeld or even Cheney himself. Or maybe Fred Hiatt.

EMERGENCY: If there is any international authority with any honor out there, please intervene and bring these thugs to justice. America is no longer capable of preserving the rule of law.