Eric Holder, the U.S Attorney General has appointed John Durham as special prosecutor to look into the facts of the recently released 259 pages of CIA memos and reports on interrogation and torture. He is to decide whether certain individuals will be indicted for having authorized and/or conducted torture. An administration putting itself in a position to condemn a previous one is no light matter. No matter what Durham decides the issue is so fraught with politics that it will be used and seen in political terms. But there is a question underlying this kind of inquiry, one that is philosophical, ethical and spiritual, that goes beyond and above politics: that is what does war mean and what does it make us do? And if war makes us do horrible things, must we do them? It may not be a new question, but it is a necessary one. As such the inquiry, no matter what else it does, reveals our struggle with the consequences of war. That makes it as important as it is essential.