IN THE PAST, the editorial columns in this paper have related to items of local interest.

This time, I feel that an issue of national importance is of such import that it warrants discussion here.

The question is whether Bush, Cheney and the gang should be prosecuted for allowing waterboarding of three Al Qaeda suspects picked up in Afghanistan shortly after 9-11 in 2001.

One suspect allegedly was waterboarded 186 times.

If he wouldn't tell his interrogators anything after the first five times, it would seem senseless to continue on and on. But they did. Whether he ever told anything of any value to the intelligence community or told anything at all has not been revealed to us.

If you have a comment or wish to write us concerning this issue, we'd like to hear from you.

Now that the Democrats have taken over in the White House and in Congress having arrived there following a resounding rebuff of Republican policies of the past, the question becomes should the President and the Congress move forward to attempt to solve the many economic problems which face us, move forward to implement the many new programs that the new administration has outlined, move forward to conquer Al Qaeda and the Taliban or move backward by consuming the time of both the administration and the Congress with endless investigations and prosecutions of Bush administration persons.

The trumpets have sounded loudly that this is a nation of laws, a constitution which makes guarantees to all persons, that protects people, even foreigners on the battlefield from being savaged.

However, this would not be the first time that the government in this nation has flaunted the constitution and its guarantees for what the administration at the time considered a more noble purpose.

FDR moved all of the Japanese on the west coast into concentration camps during World War II, making them sell their homes and businesses, sometimes within one week, before they were loaded on trains and taken away. The Supreme Court upheld this action as a necessity at the time.

It was not until over 40 years later that the government saw fit to partially reimburse the survivors for their family's losses.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the right to habeas corpus, allowing the government to arrest people at will and hold them confined without bail, speedy trial or even charges during the Civil War.

Lincoln is now regarded as one of our greatest presidents, by many he is regarded as the greatest president of all time.

There are other examples of the government exceeding its authority and doing things that are repugnant to us all.

On the other side, there are those that have stated that waterboarding isn't anything akin to the type of things done by governments that really torture people, things like pulling out fingernails, using electrical shock to the private parts and hot pokers. Whatever side you may be on, one wonders whether anything will be gained by Congressional investigations and Attorney General prosecutions of government officials.

Republicans in Congress have already threatened that if this starts, they will shut the government down.

Are we to begin an era when the losers get prosecuted by the winners.

Has everyone forgotten how this was handled in South Africa after the downfall of Apartheid?

It would have been so easy for the new regime to have had their revenge on the old regime. The treatment of those opposed to Apartheid, Communists, Coloreds and Blacks during the National Party's regime were absolutely horrendous. Had there have been prosecutions, hardly anyone would have raised a finger to blame the new government for doing it.

However, because of the intercession of President Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, principally, there were no prosecutions. A time of public forgiveness ruled the day.

Mr. Mandela's presidency could have become bogged down and white flight could have occurred. None of this happened. South Africa is one of the few success stories on the continent.

Here in the United States, the entire agenda of the Obama administration could be completely ruined and his presidency compromised if, instead of looking forward, the administration and the Congress seek revenge against their hated predecessor, the Bush administration.

President Obama's original inclination had been to publicly release the waterboarding tapes, then state categorically that he was moving forward and would not prosecute anyone.

The following day, clearly after considerable pressure from the left, he changed course and announced that their could be prosecutions. He said there would be no prosecution of the persons who were "only following orders" and performing the waterboarding interrogation but rather, those who implemented or okayed the policy. That left only the lawyers for the Bush White House, and even, potentially, the former president himself.

The chief proponent of prosecution is our own Senator Leahy who has vowed a complete Senate investigation of any and all in the Bush administration for starting the Iraq War and for any innumerable other incidents which he opposes.

However you may feel about the Bush administration, the Iraq War or, for that matter, waterboarding, the answer is not in time consuming investigations and recriminations, not in endless prosecutions which would consume not only considerable time but also a great deal of precious money.

Rather, the answer is found in moving forward while resolving that in future, we will not fall to the lowest common denominator ever again, that we will not take on the cloak of our enemies by acting as they do.

As Shakespeare penned in Julius Caesar when Antony speaks the funeral oration: "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him; The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones."

Likewise, let us bury what many consider the evil of the Bush administration for not to do so may be a curse worse then the cure.

If you have feelings to the contrary or wish to write about this issue, we want to hear from you. You can e-mail us at thenorthfieldnews@ gmail.com