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?
