President Bush feels the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will provide “clarity” for American interrogation specialists to know they can torture their suspects with impunity. Because America doesn’t torture, in the dictionary sense of the word.

But there’s a clarity that will hit all the Bushmen when they sober up. They will face the Geneva Conventions and the International Convention on Torture. And there are two further legal principles already in force since the last world war. No one is exempt from international law, and no domestic law may abridge or revoke international conventions.

Pass whatever tortured laws you think can protect you, you can run but you can’t hide.

On the issue of providing indemnity to American interrogators, there is one further principle exercised at Nuremburg. Each of us is responsible for refusing immoral commands. There is no such excuse as just following orders.

The US Supreme Court, rigged as it has been to Bush’s favor, may not strike down his permit to torture, but international jurists will. Bush’s vengefull threat aimed at the already-dead 9/11 highjackers will prove true in a manner opposite his intent:

“Those who kill the innocent will be held to account.”