Jack Bauer vs. Reality, Part 89034583458

Bauer: “WHERE’S THE BOMB?”
A Muslim: “You’re torturing me right now, so I’ll tell you! I wouldn’t have told you where it was otherwise, so this ticking time-bomb scenario proves that series creator Joel Surnow (close friend of Rush Limbaugh) is right and Benjamin Franklin was wrong when it comes to balancing liberty against security!”
- 24.

"Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots"
-The real world, rudely contradicting what the Republicans have been telling us for years.

The latest in a series of post-Bush articles to (belatedly) take on the issue of stupid illegal torture goes on to say that:

Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh
measures quickly evaporated, while most of the
useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly
names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was
obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they
said.

So the guy had already been talking with them when they decided to put the boots to him, medium style? It’s good to know that literally no part of the 24 scenario is in any way accurate, I was worried that they might have gotten some minor detail right.

So the men in Guantanamo were put there on a whim by random soldiers who couldn’t make any sense out of what they were seeing in a strange land, but at least the decision to allow torture was subject to long weeks and months of discussions about the moral and legal implications, right? Right?

Such intelligence was significant but not
blockbuster material. Frustrated, the Bush
administration ratcheted up the pressure --
for the first time approving the use of
increasingly harsh interrogations, including
waterboarding.

Oh good, the decision wasn’t a product of an imminent threat or soul-searching discussions about torture, but rather frustration and a vague insistence that this guy (whom they had already realized wasn’t as important as initially thought) might know more.

Fantastic. Once again, none of this is very surprising to anyone who's been paying attention, but after so many years it's still truly shameful to see. Anyone have any ideas about how future Presidents can be held responsible for grossly immoral acts without having the whole thing turn into a partisan vengeance-fest?