This Is Why It's Necessary To PROSECUTE THE TORTURE, Mr President

From the AP:

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the U.S. government.

"I don't want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement," Bush told an audience of Iowa Republicans, when asked whether he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama's executive order banning so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA.

Um that "definitive, blanket kind of statement" has already been made.  It's the law signed by Ronald Reagan. Article 1 reads in part:

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Back to the AP:

He suggested there may be occasions when brutal interrogations were called for to keep the country safe.

"That's why I'm not saying in every condition, under every possible scenario," Bush said.

And Article 2 of that law that Ronald Reagan signed reads in part:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Yea, Jeb.  Kinda definitive, doncha think?

This is why the Obama Administration needed to prosecute the Bush torture - so that no later president could (as Jeb Bush is trying to do) keep the unlawful option open.

Torture is illegal. 

George Bush allowed the torture.

He should have been prosecuted for it.

This is why.