New Rick Perry Campaign Ad!

Remember, this is a guy who even the Bush people think is shallow. Which I assume means he should have a great shot at being nominated (and possibly elected).



[sigh]









(h/t to Spork).

As If We Needed More Convincing

From the Atlantic Wire:

One of the most vocal human rights groups in the U.S. is calling on foreign governments to prosecute President George W. Bush and his former cabinet for war crimes, given that the Obama administration has avoided the issue. In a report published today, New York-based Human Rights Watch says Bush, former vice president Dick Cheney, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet could be prosecuted under the 1996 War Crimes Act, among other laws. "There is enough strong evidence from the information made public over the past five years to not only suggest these officials authorized and oversaw widespread and serious violations of US and international law, but that they failed to act to stop mistreatment, or punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses," read the report. It accused the Bush administration of approving waterboarding, authorizing the CIA's detention program and carrying out illegal abductions involving torture, saying an investigation is necessary "if the US hopes to wipe away the stain of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo and reaffirm the primacy of the rule of law." The author of the report, Reed Brody, says he's calling on an investigation now because "[i]t's become abundantly clear that there is no longer any movement on the part of the Obama administration to live up to its responsibilities to investigate these cases." As the BBC notes, President Bush has "defended some of the techniques, saying they prevented attacks and saved lives." [emphasis added]

I realize that President Obama has a great deal to deal with right now, what with the GOP holding the economy hostage in order to guarantee their millionaire and billionaire base pay as little tax as possible, but war crimes are war crimes.

And war crimes were committed. Failing to prosecute (or at least investigate) them is covering them up. Obama is letting Bush get away with torture. And that's indefensible.

Here's the report.

From the Summary:

For example, the Bush administration authorized coercive interrogation practices by the CIA and the military that amounted to torture, and instituted an illegal secret CIA detention program in which detainees were held in undisclosed locations without notifying their families, allowing access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, or providing for oversight of their treatment. Detainees were also unlawfully rendered (transferred) to countries such as Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, where they were likely to be tortured. Indeed, many were, including Canadian national Maher Arar who described repeated beatings with cables and electrical cords during the 10 months he was held in Syria, where the US sent him in 2002. Evidence suggests that torture in such cases was not a regrettable consequence of rendition; it may have been the purpose.

At the same time, politically appointed administration lawyers drafted legal memoranda that sought to provide legal cover for administration policies on detention and interrogation.

The report gives a handy outline of the US laws violated. From the section titled Individual Criminal Responsibility:

The acts and abuses discussed in this report violate various provisions of US federal law, including the Crimes and Criminal Procedure Statute, Chapter 18 of the US Code (U.S.C.), which prohibits: torture (section 2340A(a)); assault (section 113); sexual abuse (sections 2241-2246); kidnapping (section 1201); homicide (sections 1111-1112 and section 2332); acts against rights (for example, sections 241-242, prohibiting conspiracies to deprive persons of their legal rights); war crimes (section 2441); conspiracy and solicitation of violent crimes (sections 371 and 373); and conspiracy to commit torture (section 2340A(c)).

The War Crimes Act of 1996 provides criminal punishment for whomever, inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, if either the perpetrator or the victim is a member of the US Armed Forces or a national of the United States. A “war crime” is defined as any “grave breach” of the 1949 Geneva Conventions or acts that violate Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions. “Grave breaches” include “willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment” of prisoners of war and of civilians qualified as “protected persons.” Common Article 3 prohibits murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

In a section titled "Duty to Investigate and Provide Redress" we read:

Under international law, states are obligated to investigate credible allegations of war crimes and serious violations of human rights committed by their nationals and members of their armed forces, or over which they have jurisdiction, and appropriately prosecute those responsible.

War crimes are serious violations of international humanitarian law committed willfully—that is, deliberately or recklessly—and give rise to individual criminal responsibility. Individuals may be held criminally responsible for directly committing war crimes or for war crimes committed pursuant to their orders. They may also be held criminally liable for attempting to commit war crimes, as well as planning, instigating, assisting, facilitating, and aiding or abetting them.

The US also has a duty to investigate serious violations of international human rights law and punish the perpetrators. As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the US has an obligation to ensure that any person whose rights are violated “shall have an effective remedy” when the violation has been committed by government officials or agents. Those seeking a remedy shall have this right determined by competent judicial, administrative, or legislative authorities. And when granted, these remedies shall be enforced by competent authorities.

But if investigations/prosecutions won't be happening here in the land of the brave, home of the free, perhaps they can occur else where.

From the section on Foreign State Proceedings:

The US failure to conduct criminal investigations into the role and responsibility of high-ranking civilian and military officials for alleged crimes against detainees has opened the door for national judicial systems in foreign states to pursue investigations and, if warranted, prosecutions under the doctrines of “universal jurisdiction” and “passive personality” jurisdiction.

Among my many disappointments with the Obama administration, this has to be the disappoint-iest.

Disappointments based on policy or political realities are one thing, but letting someone get away with a war crime is something completely different.

Prosecute the war crimes. It's the only right thing to do.

Osama bin Laden Dead Eight Years to the Day of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" Banner

Via Wikipedia:

"Mission Accomplished" refers to a banner titled "Mission Accomplished" that was displayed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during a televised address by United States President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003 and the controversy that followed. The speech was not actually titled "Mission Accomplished".

In Case You Missed This

From the AP:

Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face an international criminal investigation for the "shame of a needless war" in Iraq.

And:

ElBaradei cites examples, including the conclusion by his inspectors inside Iraq that certain aluminum tubes were designed for artillery rockets, not for uranium enrichment equipment to build nuclear bombs, as Washington asserted.

The IAEA chief reported this conclusion to the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 27, 2003, and yet on the next day Bush — in a "remarkable" response — delivered a State of the Union address in which he repeated the unfounded claim about aluminum tubes, ElBaradei notes.

Similar contradictions of expert findings occurred with the claim, based on a forgery, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger, and an Iraqi exile's fabrication that "mobile labs" were producing biological weapons.

"I was aghast at what I was witnessing," ElBaradei writes of the official U.S. attitude before the March 2003 invasion, which he calls "aggression where there was no imminent threat," a war in which he accepts estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed.

In such a case, he suggests, the World Court should be asked to rule on whether the war was illegal. And, if so, "should not the International Criminal Court investigate whether this constitutes a `war crime' and determine who is accountable?"

No immanent threat. Hundreds of thousands dead. An illegal war based on lies (and at least one forgery). War Crimes.

The book, The Age of Deception, is to be published this week by MacMillan. Here's an excerpt:

In the years since, multiple sources have confirmed that the premise for the March 2003 invasion—the charge by the United States and the United Kingdom that Saddam Hussein's WMD programs represented an imminent threat—was groundless. The U.S.-appointed Iraq Survey Group would later spend billions of dollars to verify that the international inspectors were correct: Iraq had not revived its WMD programs. Nor, apparently, was the alleged WMD threat the real motivation for the U.S. and U.K. aggression. The famously leaked "Downing Street" memo from July 2002 was one of several sources indicating that the decision to go to war had been taken well before the inspections ever began.

To this day, I cannot read such accounts without reflecting on the thousands of soldiers who have died, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, the millions maimed or displaced, the families disrupted, the lives ruined—and I am astonished that there has not been more self-examination, more introspection on the part of the principal players. The shame of this needless war obliges us all to consider what went wrong in the case of Iraq and to reflect on how the lessons of this tragedy might be applied to future crises.

And while in 2008, candidate Obama said this:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

We've seen nothing from President Obama even remotely similar.

Happy Easter, my friends. Happy Easter.

But Ginny, He IS A War Criminal

My friend Ginny wrote yesterday:

The very day I outed myself as Virginia Montanez instead of PittGirl, Chad Hermann at the Radical Middle latched on to this letter to the editor I wrote when George Bush was re-elected, wondering how my readers were going to like me knowing I was a Republican. This resulted in some uproar from readers who were shocked I ever voted for a “war criminal.” Yes. WAR CRIMINAL. I voted for him because as you already know ME LOVE KILLING! GRRRRR.

But Ginny, why the use of the ironic quotation marks? Bush IS a war criminal and he was when you voted for him in 2004. He approved the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and KSM (as he's known in intelligence circles) was waterboarded in 2003 - well before the 2004 election.

I don't think I need to spell out (again) how waterboarding is torture and how torture is against international and US law and how torture is a war crime, do I?

Even without the Bush-approved torture, the case could be made for war criminal by the invasion of Iraq itself and the dishonesty he used to support it - where were the connections to al-Qaeda? the sale of uranium in Niger? the WMD? They were no where to be found. The foundations for the war were fraudulent even if the war resulted in halting Saddam Hussein's murderous regime. Bottom line is that all that blood (American, Iraqi, British, etc) IS on Dubya's hands.

Whatever else belongs in your otherwise thoughtful and nuanced blog post, the irony quotes don't.

Perhaps I misunderstood (and if I did, then I apologize in advance) and you DO think that Bush is a war criminal and you were merely quoting one or more readers with your use of the quotation marks.

If that's the case, then why the vote for the war criminal?

More On Bush's War Crimes (An Update)

As today was to be the day when former President George W Bush was to speak in Switzerland, I thought it might be a good idea to follow up on the story.

From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

On February 7, 2011, two torture victims were to have filed criminal complaints for torture against former president George W. Bush in Geneva, who was due to speak at an event there on February 12th. On the eve of the filing of the complaints, George Bush cancelled his trip. Swiss law requires the presence of the alleged torturer on Swiss soil before a preliminary investigation can be open. The complaints could not be filed after Bush cancelled, as the basis for jurisdiction no longer existed.

These two complaints are part of a larger effort to ensure accountability for torturers, including former U.S. officials. So on February 7, 2011, CCR publically released the "Preliminary Bush Torture Indictment." This document presents fundamental aspects of the case against George Bush for torture, and a preliminary legal analysis of his liability for torture and a response to some anticipated defenses. This document will be updated as developments warrant. The exhibit list contains references to more than 2,500 pages of supporting material.

Here's the indictment.The CCR says:

The Preliminary Bush Torture Indictment was prepared so that it could be used for individual victims to file cases against George Bush in any country where the Convention Against Torture provides jurisdiction.

From elsewhere on the CCR website:

“Waterboarding is torture, and Bush has admitted, without any sign of remorse, that he approved its use,” said Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at CCR and Vice President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). “The reach of the Convention Against Torture is wide – this case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he travels next. Torturers – even if they are former presidents of the United States – must be held to account and prosecuted. Impunity for Bush must end.”

While the U.S. has thus far failed to comply with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture to prosecute and punish those who commit torture, all other signatories, too, are obligated to prosecute or extradite for prosecution anyone present in their territory they have a reasonable basis for believing has committed torture. If the evidence warrants, as the Bush Torture Indictment contends it does, and the U.S. fails to request the extradition of Bush and others to face charges of torture there, CAT signatories must, under law, prosecute them for torture.

So I guess ole Dubya won't be travelling overseas or otherwise out of the country anytime soon.

Now if only the Obama Administration followed the law regarding torture.

More On Bush, Torturer

The Swiss have the right idea about a number of things; chocolate and watches and in this case, justice:

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on Feb. 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.

The New York Times has more:

The visit to Geneva was to have been Mr. Bush’s first trip to Europe since his memoir, “Decision Points,” was published in November, and the first since he publicly stated in interviews on his book tour that he had personally authorized the use of waterboarding in the questioning of terrorism detainees.

As a result, international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, seized on the scheduled visit to petition the Swiss authorities to open an investigation of Mr. Bush while he was in the country. The groups argued that he had admitted to torture and thus could be prosecuted in Switzerland and other countries that have signed on to the international convention banning torture.

The World Organization Against Torture sent this letter to the Swiss authorities in which they point out the obligations the Swiss have as signatories to the United Nations Conventions Against Torture:

In light of the overwhelming body of available information there can hardly be doubt that there are grounds that were to trigger Switzerland’s obligation to submit cases for investigations into the crime of torture against anybody present on its soil who has authorized, participated or was complicit in the above practices. This would have to include also former President G Bush who had the overall control as commander in chief and as all information suggests authorized, knew and acquiesced into the practices that constitute the crime of torture. Switzerland would also have to take measures against any offender present on its territory to secure his presence for such criminal investigations and proceedings. In this regard, the OMCT considers that neither officials nor former Heads of States can enjoy immunity for the crime of torture under the UN Convention Against Torture, nor can superior orders or the memos drafted by government lawyers and that sought to immunize officials from prospective prosecution under US domestic law, shield them from responsibility under international law.

The US is also signed the those conventions. When can we see the FBI investigate the war criminal?

Bush Again Admits To Torture

(h/t to Crooks and Liars):


Transcript via C&L as well:

CAMERATO: Good morning Mr. President. My name is C.J. Camerato and I’m from Boston Massachusetts and I’m curious, were or are you concerned that legislation that you passed such as the Patriot Act opens the door for potential abuse by future presidencies?

BUSH: Great question. The law that was passed twice by the Congress, once when Republicans controlled the Congress, when we controlled the Congress and once after the ’06 election when we got soundly thumped, guarantee civil liberties and there’s a lot of safeguards in the law. And I don’t think a president can…can, through executive order preempt the safeguards in the Patriot Act. There are plenty of checks and balances in our system and throughout the book and historians will note throughout my presidency that I worked assiduously to make sure that civil liberties were not undermined.

And at the same time, provide the tools necessary for a president, future presidents to be able to protect the homeland and um… look, there’s some very controversial… the Patriot Act was one of the least controversial things I did initially. And then it became a… both parts of the political spectrum became a touchstone of too much government and yet the experts will tell you that the tools inherent in the Patriot Act were necessary to disrupt terrorist’s attacks.

And another interesting point in the book, I learned from history was that a lot of the actions that Harry Truman took made my life easier as president and therefore many of the decisions I made through executive order are the most controversial decisions I made through executive order, such as listening to the phone calls of people who might do us harm, or enhanced interrogation techniques, became the law of the land.

In other words, after the ’04 elections and after the ’06 elections, I went to Congress and said we need to ratify through legislative action that which I had done within the Constitution by executive order. And so the Congress, in spite of the fact that we had been dumped, passed law that now enables a president to have these certain tools.

People say why didn’t you just leave it under executive order? And the reason why is in some cases it might be too hard politically for a president to put out an executive order that for example our authorized enhanced interrogation techniques.

But if that were law of the land as passed by a legislative body it might be easier for that person to use that technique and it was… and so one of the… I think I saw as an accomplishment was to get the Congress to pass much of what I’d done by executive order and in so doing there was embedded in law, concern for civil liberties.

Um, that "listening to the phone calls of people who might do us harm" part? That was illegal.

And the "enhanced interrogation techniques"? We all know that was the waterboarding. It's also illegal.

So don't talk to me about Dubya's concern for civil liberties. He committed war crimes and should be prosecuted. The fact that he wasn't even investigated by the Obama administration will forever stand as one of its great moral failures.

More On Bush's Torture (Mayor Of London Has A Warning)

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has a warning of sorts for George W Bush: You may be arrested if you come here.

Take a look:

It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.

One moment he might be holding forth to a great perspiring tent at Hay-on-Wye. The next moment, click, some embarrassed member of the Welsh constabulary could walk on stage, place some handcuffs on the former leader of the Free World, and take him away to be charged. Of course, we are told this scenario is unlikely. Dubya is the former leader of a friendly power, with whom this country is determined to have good relations. But that is what torture-authorising Augusto Pinochet thought. And unlike Pinochet, Mr Bush is making no bones about what he has done.

All this because Bush admitted to authorizing torture.

Johnson goes through the usual analysis of torture; it's incompatible with US and international law, it doesn't work, it's "results" are inadmissible in court because those results are usually unreliable.

The Mayor of London ends with this:

How could America complain to the Burmese generals about the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, when a president authorised torture? How can we talk about human rights in Beijing, when our number one ally and friend seems to be defending this kind of behaviour? I can’t think of any other American president, in my lifetime, who would have spoken in this way. Mr Bush should have remembered the words of the great Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who said in 1863 that “military necessity does not admit of cruelty”. Damn right.

Damn right.

UPDATE: I forgot the link to the Boris Johnson quote. It's fixed now.

Another Reason Why Torture Is A Bad Idea

Take a look at the Ghailani Verdict:

Fierce criticism erupted Thursday over the split verdict on terrorism charges against the first Guantánamo detainee to be tried in civilian court, casting new doubts on the Obama administration’s goal of trying cases against other prisoners in the civilian criminal justice system.

The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was convicted Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan of conspiring in the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, and he faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. But Republican critics roundly denounced the fact that a jury acquitted him on all but one of more than 280 charges — including every murder count — as a sign that such terrorism detainees should be prosecuted only before a military commission.

That portrayal of the verdict as a disaster was hotly contested by the administration and other supporters of civilian trials. They argued that the system had shown that a terrorist could be convicted and sentenced to a stiff prison term even after a judge excluded evidence tainted by coercive interrogations during the Bush administration.

See that? They euphemized "torture" to "coercive interrogations." When they do it it's torture; when we do it it's "coercive interrogations." Damned lib-rul media!

So what's the problem?

Many observers attributed any weakness in the prosecution’s case to the fact that the Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in Manhattan, who presided over the trial, refused to allow prosecutors to introduce testimony from an important witness, who was discovered after interrogators used coercive techniques on Mr. Ghailani.

So evidence based on torture was deemed inadmissible. That, of course enraged the law and order types on the right. Military tribunals wouldn't have this problem, they said.

Not so:

But proponents of civilian trials noted that in a footnote of his order rejecting the witness, Judge Kaplan pointed to restrictions against evidence obtained by torture in military trials and strongly suggested that a military judge would have excluded the testimony, too.

So, apart from the immorality of Bush's torture, apart from the illegality of Bush's torture, there's another reason why torture is bad. Bad, bad, bad.

From Andrew Sullivan:

The only thing to say about the remarkable acquittals on almost all counts for a tortured prisoner of war is that torture renders convictions all but impossible. By throwing aside all norms for prisoner treatment and setting up an apparatus of systemic torture, Bush and Cheney destroyed critical evidence that could have been used by the prosecution to convict. [emphases added.]

In their zeal to "git 'em!" Bush and Cheney made things much much more complicated. They could have just followed the law but they didn't. They broke it. And now the only alternative is detaining the accused terrorists indefinitely without trial. Another insult to our Constitutional system.

This is the Bush/Cheney legacy: torture followed by indefinite detention. So much for the rule of law.

More On Bush's Torture Crimes (The UN's New Rapporteur Chimes In)

From Reuters:

The new U.N. torture expert urged the United States on Tuesday to conduct a full investigation into torture under the Bush administration and prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered it.

And:

"The United States has a duty to investigate every act of torture. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much in the way of accountability," said [Juan Ernesto] Mendez, himself a former torture victim, in the wide-ranging interview at the United Nations in Geneva.

"There has to be a more serious inquiry into what happened and by whose orders... It doesn't need to be seen to be partisan or vindictive, just an obligation to follow where the evidence leads," added Mendez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture.

And what is a "UN special rapporteur"?

From the UN's website:

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in resolution 1985/33, decided to appoint an expert, a special rapporteur, to examine questions relevant to torture. The mandate was extemded for 3 years by Human Rights Council resolution 8/8 in June 2008. It covers all countries, irrespective of whether a State has ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The mandate comprises three main activities:

1) transmitting urgent appeals to States with regard to individuals reported to be at risk of torture, as well as communications on past alleged cases of torture;
2) undertaking fact-finding country visits; and
3) submitting annual reports on activities, the mandate and methods of work to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

So Mendez, aside expertize gained from being a victim of torture himself, is also an officially mandated expert on torture, what it is and where it's taking place.

Recently Mendez was interviewed by Australian reporter Mark Colvin. When asked if there was a question as to whether waterboarding is torture, Mendez answered:

I don't think there is any question, any serious question. I mean it's a question of severity. If you think that waterboarding is not severe mistreatment you don't really know what waterboarding is. But you know if just with the definition that it's designed to create a sensation of asphyxia, you can tell that it's severe. There's just no other way.

I mean if you then redefine upwards the severity standard to say that it's only severe if it's organ failure or death, then you know you're really very clearly distorting the sense of the words and you know words have to be interpreted in treaty language, they have to be interpreted in their plain meaning and their plain meaning couldn't be more clear in the case of waterboarding.

Then when asked if waterboarding is a war crime, he answered:

Well it can be depending on the situation in which it happens. I mean it's a war crime if it's in a battle field scenario. If, you know, the enemy soldier is arrested and instead of just allowing him to say name and serial number, as it were, you try to interrogate him under torture. Then of course it's a war crime. But in other circumstances, you know in law enforcement circumstances it's an international crime. Whether it's a war crime or crime against humanity it doesn't matter. The single act of torture is an international crime.

And then there's another problem with not prosecuting the torture. Mendez asks:

How are we going to tell a small country that it has the obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish torture when states with all the wherewithal and all the ability and all the human resources and intelligence and skill to do this, decide not to do it?

Y'know like if Iran tortures someone then how can the US claim any sort of moral high ground to criticize when we're allowing a our own torturers to go unprosecuted?

Meanwhile, here's something you won't soon see on the fair and balanced Fox "News" channel:

Protesters called for George W. Bush to be arrested for his role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as he opened his presidential library in Dallas.

Demonstrators staked hundreds of white crosses into the ground to represent troops killed in both wars and carried banners saying 'torture is illegal' and 'arrest Bush'.

Huh. I missed that even in the "Mainstream" American news. I wonder why.

Torture is an war crime. Bush allowed the torture. Prosecute the torture. Prosecute Bush.

More On Bush's Torture (A View From The Outside)

Now that George Bush has admitted to torture and now (it seems) that the Obama administration is just as reluctant to prosecute (or even investigate) those war crimes as ever, the responsibility just now may fall to our overseas allies.

From Rue 89:

A total of 145 other countries, including Canada, are signatories to the U.N. Convention Against Torture. And all signatories have committed to enforcing its provisions, even against offenders residing in other territories.

Therefore, with varying degrees of success, proceedings have been initiated in Spain and Belgium against foreign heads of state, notably the Chilean Pinochet. Water boarding is now considered a form of torture worldwide, and those responsible must be prosecuted.

And:

In fact, a court in Madrid last January opened proceedings against Bush advisors who wrote memos illegally authorizing the use of torture. The case is pending, but the issue was pursued precisely because no American authority took action against the officials responsible.

It's a safe bet that George W. Bush is now in the crosshairs of the Spain tribunal. If it were to condemn him, even in absentia, he would then be subject to the mutual extradition treaty in force among 24 European countries.

In other words, Bush couldn't travel to any of these countries without incurring the risk of being deported to Spain to serve out his sentence.

No one is above the law - not even presidents. That was the case when it came to lying about blowjobs, why isn't it the case when war crimes are involved?

Torture is illegal. Prosecute the torture. It's simple.

Two Views of Bush's War Crimes

View one, from Amnesty International:

Amnesty International today urged a criminal investigation into the role of former US President George W. Bush and other officials in the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in secret US custody after the former president admitted authorizing their use.

And:

“Under international law, the former President’s admission to having authorized acts that amount to torture are enough to trigger the USA’s obligations to investigate his admissions and if substantiated, to prosecute him,” said Claudio Cordone, Senior Director at Amnesty International.

Amnesty gives some background:

The USA ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) in 1994. Under UNCAT, in every case where there is evidence against a person of their having committed or attempted to commit torture, or of having committed acts which constitute complicity or participation in torture, the case must be submitted to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.

Failing to proceed with a prosecution on the basis that the accused held public office of any rank, or citing justifications based in “exceptional circumstances”, whether states of war or other public emergencies, is not permitted by UNCAT.

I know we've done this before, but let's do it again.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture was signed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by the Senate in 1994. And according to Article IV paragraph 2 of the US Constitution, which says:

This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

UNCAT is US Law. Torture is against US Law. Bush needs to be prosecuted.

Then there's the wingnuts who love love l-o-o-o-o-o-v-e the Constitution except when it gets in their way. Here's Peter King (R-NY):

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) on Wednesday defended the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and said a Democratic colleague was “entirely wrong” to call for an investigation into the interrogation method sanctioned by the previous White House.

King, the presumptive next chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, pushed back against demands by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) for a probe into Bush-era waterboarding and asserted that President George W. Bush’s authorization of the practice “saved many, many lives.”

“Jerry and I are friends, but he’s entirely wrong on this,” King said in an interview with POLITICO’s Arena. “There would’ve been lives lost, and Bush deserves credit for what he did.”

Doesn't matter. Torture's still illegal. What part of that don't they get?

And then King further distinguishes himself:

King suggested Bush “should get a medal” for authorizing waterboarding. King said cases like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind Sept. 11 who is currently awaiting trial, proved practices such as waterboarding were effective.

“There was no harm done,” King said, referring to Mohammed. “In the big picture, to hold someone’s head underwater, the chance of permanent damage is minimal and the rewards are great.”

No harm done, except to the rule of law.

And our moral standing in the world.

No one is above the law. George W Bush is a war criminal. And Peter King is defending the indefensible.

More On Bush's Waterboarding War Crime

Of course the rightwing media (and it's enablers in the mainstream) are spreading a false justification.

From Mediamatters.org:

Following the release of former President George W. Bush's book Decision Points, right-wing media are promoting Bush's claim that waterboarding "saved lives." But this claim is disputed by intelligence experts, including former British officials who have "cast doubt" on Bush's waterboarding claims.

And here's one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard the idiotic Brian Kilmeade say (again, from Mediamatters):

"George W. Bush telling his critics who's boss." Later on Fox & Friends, Kilmeade called Bush's comments, "President George W. Bush telling his critics who's boss." After playing Bush's statement that waterboarding "saved lives," Kilmeade said, "That's one of the things he's most proud of."

Then there's the intelligence experts' skepticism. There's this from The Guardian in the UK:

No 10 dismisses George Bush's claim in his memoirs that interrogation technique is legal and helped foil attacks on Heathrow and Canary Wharf

The title of the piece, by the way, is:

Waterboarding is torture, Downing Street confirms

On to the British intelligence expert:

The former chair of the Commons intelligence and security committee, Kim Howells, cast doubt on Bush's claim that it had helped save British lives. "We are not convinced," said the Labour MP.

The piece ends with this from the former shadow Home Secretary David Davis:

Davis told Today that although security information provided from abroad would have to be used regardless of how it was obtained, torture did not work and should be discouraged.

"People under torture tell you what you want to hear," he said. "You'll get the wrong information and ... apart from being immoral, apart from destroying our standing in the world, and apart from undermining the way of life we're trying to defend, it actually doesn't deliver."

There's more from Davis (who's a member of the Conservative party over there in the UK) by way of the BBC:

He said a large part of the false intelligence on WMD that led to the war in Iraq came from torture and illegal rendition.

Which is interesting when the discussion of Iraq's WMD comes up later on in the BBC piece:

Mr Bush said he still had "a sickening feeling" about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But he defended his decision to invade Iraq, saying Iraqi citizens were better off without the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the US was better off without Saddam pursuing biological or chemical weapons.

Mr Bush admits that he was shocked when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

But asked, in an interview with NBC, if he ever considered apologising to Americans for that failure to find WMD, he said: "Apologising would basically say the decision was a wrong decision.

"And I don't believe it was the wrong decision."

Having trouble getting through Dubya's logic here. He was shocked when no WMD were found - but he still thinks the decision (the one based on his mistake about the WMD) to send so many thousands of Americans into battle was incorrect.

Whatever he might believe, he was still wrong about the WMD and he was still wrong about the torture he ordered. And that's still a war crime.

George W. Bush is a war criminal.