President Bush is amazing in his cherry picking through the evidence supporting his claim he did the right thing by breaking international law. He will always claim he was right even the consequences of his actions like his record remain yet to seen and felt. IF one American, citizen or soldier is tortured then President Bush attempts to keep Americans safe failed. We WERE the standard for nations to look up to now we are looked down upon by our freinds. We look can't dictaorships in the eye and say we are NOT like you because THEY KNOW WE ARE LIKE THEM. Americans broke with the Geneva Convention on the orders of President Bush.
We are not stronger or smarter because of President Bush but weaker because we have might lost the moral leverage to lead and be trusted as a people. President Bush justified torture by a very broad definition (torture resulting death and dismemberment). The Executive Branch sanctioned interrogation techniques used by our own special forces SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training. These techniques expose our soldiers to examples of what a totalitarian dictatorship not abiding by the Geneva Conventions does to people. Did someone not understand the definition of the word IS?
Things like stress positions, standing for more than 4 hours on end, sleep deprivation and waterboarding are torture. If an American did these things they must bear the responsibility of their actions because an illegal order is illegal and puts America on the road to being a totalitarian state. "I was just doing my job" was a defense used at Nuremberg. We didn’t buy it then why should we buy it now? FBI and military lawyers who have gone thought SERE training stated techniques have stated such techniques were being used against civilians accused of being held enemy combatants at Guantanamo. Does word "accused" mean "guilty"? Do the words "enemy combatants" mean "less than human"? President Bush your actions in office speak louder than the words in your farewell address. Did you hold Arlene Howard son’s badge when you broke the law authorizing torture? You say, Mr. President, you did everything within your power to keep America safe but torture was not within your power. It is against the law. No American President is above or beyond the law.
Only history will tell. The odds are 50/50. Unless President Bush and his VP Cheney are brought to trial for their crimes then we condone their actions and say to other nations "It is all good" when it is not good at all.