ShareThisIt's not that long now until we have a new president, and many on the left and some others are salivating because here's their chance to get George W. Bush, to put him on trial for war crimes, and if doing so tears this nation apart, so what? That's what justice demands, they say.
But of course it's not what justice demands, just what their hatred demands. At the end of the day, it is not enough for them to feel validated in their arguments by the election of Barack Obama, by Congress enacting at least some laws they hoped for or by the courts ruling in favor of some of their positions. Such sissy, civil, democratic stuff won't do when they have a chance for something bloody.
And therefore you get a distraught diatribe in The New York Review of Books by Berkeley journalism professor Mark Danner, or more noteworthy, a letter by 56 House Democrats requesting a Justice Department probe of whether President Bush and others in the administration have violated the War Crimes Act. Then one day an acquaintance leans your way and asks whether Bush will contrive to pardon himself and his buddies before leaving office.
You are tempted to answer that you hope he will include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in those pardons, seeing as how she once got briefed on a favored topic of the new-Nuremberg encouragers -- waterboarding -- and raised no objections. But then, you might add, waterboarding has been used by the United States no more than three times that we know of, despite an endlessly expressed anxiety that would make you think it was used on thousands.
Mentioning such things -- or the points of some others that the waterboarding might have saved lives, had been ruled legal by the Justice Department and is at this point clearly illegal -- isn't the same as embracing its use. It's just placing things in a context that ought to rule out criminal prosecution -- there was consultation with congressional leaders, there was an effort to discern the legality of the act.
It's true there are many other "crimes" giving the left heart palpitations, among them one that Danner brings up -- Bush lied us into war. He didn't, or if he did, let's list the others who also told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Joe Biden, still other liberals in the Senate and officials in intelligence agencies of such countries as the United States, France and Britain.
Bush did make mistakes. But it's hardly necessary to be a fan of all his tactics to understand that they were no worse than all kinds of transgressions by Congress and past presidents, that they came in the midst of a time that was very frightening, that the perils of some of them have been vastly exaggerated and that the worst have been softened or are gone. Safety has in fact ensued from certain of these measures, although this we should know: We are not out of trouble yet.
A bipartisan commission recently warned that terrorists would likely employ biological or nuclear weapons sometime between now and 2013 in the absence of still more preventive efforts by governments, and there are indications our next president is prepared to do what he thinks is needed. A New York Times report says Obama is considering a preventive detention law for some of the clearly dangerous men at Guantanamo who just might escape guilty verdicts in a trial.. Maybe he should someday worry about a war-crime trial, too?
Obviously not, and just as obviously, for the sake of real justice but also for the sake of avoiding catastrophic political collisions in the land, Bush shouldn't, either.
(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)
COLUMN
Bush and obama
A "war crimes" trial for GWB, but not even forcing obama to produce a birth certificate to prove HIS legitimacy in assuming the presidency of the United States??
The author is correct in stating that liberal hatred for George W. Bush is propelling the so-called "war crimes" tribunal that the left wing is so salivating over.
At the same time, though, "hatred" and "racism" against obama are NOT the reasons why so many in this country are DEMANDING proof that he has the right to the office of the United States presidency. Our nation's Constitution DEMANDS that the president be a "natural-born citizen". If it didn't, then obama's birth certificate would be a non-issue. The Constitution's requirements have no roots in hatred OR racism; they were put in place to guarantee (or at least attempt to guarantee) that there would be no question of "divided loyalties" in the personages of future Presidents!
I am opposed to those who contend that by requiring obama to simply produce a original, certified birth certificate prior to his inauguration, we may be demanding too much; because if he is unable to do so, then "we may place the American people in a situation that "tears this nation apart", and that our continuing demands will be ignored, in order to prevent that scenario from occuring.
Sure, I would rather have a different president, but if obama can prove his "natural-born" status, his presidency would assume a legitimacy that it currently lacks, due to his own refusal to supply this document.
This entire matter could have been cleared up with a $10 document copy, yet over $800,000 has been spent on legal fees opposing multiple lawsuits demanding a simple document...WHY??
Obama's continuing legal defense moves AGAINST producing a birth certificate give creedence to the argument that he CANNOT produce one, and his presidency WILL be in doubt so long as this issue is not resolved before the American people. Would we want it any other way if the party in question was John McCain instead of Barack obama??
Yet these same people espouse trying GWB for "war crimes, with a dismissive, "and if doing so tears this nation apart, so what?" "So what?" isn't what you said about obama...and "race riots" are what's being put forth as a possibility should he be denied the presidency due to his failure to be "natural-born", qualified candidate in the first place, and Barack obama KNOWS whether he is or isn't, he's just not letting the rest of us in on it!
This is nothing short of hypocrisy motivated by hatred being made equal with legitimate Constitutional concers, and it has to STOP!!
War Crimes Trial for Bush
It is clear to any fair-minded observer that the use of torture authorized at the highest levels of the Administration, went far beyond 3 instances of waterboarding. The fact that Nancy Pelosi or others were possibly informed of these tactics when under a strict legal obligation to remain silent on any information given to them does not immunizes the perpetrators of war crimes.
Mr. Ambrose speculates that "waterboarding might have saved lives". But Iraq interrogator Matthew Alexander wrote in a Nov. 30 Washington Post editorial that "The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."
So President Bush's torture policy wasn't only immoral and unChristian, it cost thousands of American soldiers their lives and limbs.
Next, Mr. Ambrose trots out that old defense that Bush couldn't have lied us into war because Clinton and other Dems have made statements about Saddam's WMD threat. But President Bush had access to quality intelligence unavailable to Clinton and the rest. Bush had up to the minute, reliable intelligence from objective experts, on the ground, with the most advanced technology that contradicted the self-interested testimony from Iraqi exiles. Yet Bush told us, "without doubt" Saddam had stockpiles of WMD despite the fact that not a trace of any such weapons found by the inspectors.
Finally, I must challenge the claim that Bush's mistakes "were no worse than all kinds of transgressions by Congress and past presidents." President Bush allow the terrorists to loot, over many weeks, hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons which they have ever since been using to kill Americans. Thousands of our troops are dead and maimed thanks to Bush's incompetence and indifference. With all do respect, I think this "mistake" is worse. Any military commander who would leave weapons dumps to be unguarded thus allowing the enemy to steal those weapons would face immediate court-martial. The Commander-in-Chief should be treated no differently.
Bush arrest in Canada, March 17
George Bush is planning a trip to Canada on March 17. He will travel for the first time as simply Mr. Bush and without his diplomatic immunity. Let there be no mistake - a large international coalition has been waiting for just this crossing of an international border into another jurisdiction. I guess we'll see...
And they well continue to
And they well continue to wait, if they think the Canadian government is going to get wrapped up in that kind of horror story.