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High crimes.
President George W. Bush committed war crimes during his presidency.
How do we know this? One way is because Bush boasted about violating the Geneva Conventions and sanctioning waterboarding of terrorism suspects it in his memoir “Decision Points.”
(For the record, waterboarding has been a crime under U.S. law for more than 90 years.)
We also have the public record (Bush memos and documents released by the Obama administration, acknowledgement by Bush’s executive team, and even excellent investigative journalism such as Jane Mayer in “The Dark Side.”)
Bush’s actions in kidnapping terrorism suspects, whisking them to secret prisons, and subjecting them to torture are in violation of not only international law, but of U.S. laws (most notably the Convention Against Torture ratified by President Ronald Reagan).
Now we also have Glenn Greenwald’s superb “With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful.” Greenwald, a former Constitutional lawyer, is now a liberal pundit and columnist for Slate.
Greenwald’s slim, but powerful volume makes a strong case that George W. Bush is a war criminal, albeit one that will never be indicted for his crimes.
Why?
Because he’s being protected by President Barack Obama. Unfortunately for Obama refusing to investigate allegations of torture is a war crime, according to both the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. Instead of steering the nation toward the rule of law, Obama has announced “This is a time for reflection, not retribution.”
From Greenwald’s book:
“Rendering Obama’s reluctance to prosecute yet more problematic is that the United States is legally required to investigate allegations of torture and to bring the torturers to justice. Not doing so is itself a criminal act. The Third Geneva Convention, which was enacted in the wake of severe detainee abuse during World War II, obliges each participating country to ‘search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and… bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts.'”
The Bush documents released by Obama make it clear that Bush authorized torture, including waterboarding. In fact, the U.S. government prosecuted Japanese soldiers in World War II for torture because they waterboarded prisoners and the U.S. government even prosecuted U.S. soldiers in Vietnam for doing the same thing.
As Greenwald notes, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, appointed by Obama, made it even clearer when he took office by stating: “Waterboarding is torture.”
Yet Obama has steadfastly refused to investigate the mounting evidence that Bush authorized torture.
Worse yet, the Obama administration has even pressured other countries from investigating cases that involved their own citizens being kidnapped and tortured by the CIA – many of them who were later released without any charges ever being filed. Greenwald illustrates some of the more egregious cases in his book.
“With Liberty and Justice for Some” is a difficult read – one that has the reader of the verge of outrage at every revelation. But Greenwald paints a grim, but compelling picture of an executive branch that defies the law and then is protected by a culture that has decided that the rich and powerful should be exempt from the rule of law.
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