Georige W. Bush is war criminal

Ethan Jennings - jennined@plu.edu Mast Op-ED Columnist

ABC News published a story April 9 wherein it was confirmed by a high-level source that senior Bush administration officials of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee had discussed and approved the nitty-gritty details of how the CIA would interrogate detainees in the War on Terror.

Then, on April 11, President Bush confirmed in an interview with ABC News that he was aware of the decisions made.

“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people,” Bush said in the interview. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”

The Principals Committee included at the time Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Of that number, only Cheney and Rice remain in office.

I think you have the background—now let me pose a pair of questions. Why are these people still in office? And why are they not on trial for war crimes?

Let us be clear. The president of the United States of America has admitted to his knowledge and approval of a decision by his cabinet members to commit war crimes, yet there are no impeachment proceedings in process. Nor are there cries from serious sources—Congress, for one—about the need to try him and his cabinet members as the war criminals they are.
Of course, we, the people of the U.S, shouldn’t delude ourselves.

We’ve known for quite some time that the CIA’s torture programs, which include waterboarding, extreme sleep deprivation and other techniques that cause physical pain and discomfort, were officially sanctioned.

The only news ABC is telling us is that Bush and his cabinet definitively,unequivocally, knew and approved of the exact details of the procedures. That our elected leaders were the ones who committed war crimes in our names, not those of some bureaucratic flunkies.

U.S. torture of detainees and suspected terrorists is a war crime. It isn’t on the level of historic crimes, such as the Holocaust or the Cambodian genocide. But we don’t fail to prosecute rape because it’s not quite as bad as murder, do we?

The Geneva Convention, ratified by the United States, explicitly prohibits “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” to “persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ‘hors de combat’ (‘out of the fight’) by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause.”

The United Nations Convention against Torture, also ratified by the U.S., states, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, from which U.S. citizens derive their basic liberties, prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” which torture has been interpreted as in the past.

Nowhere is it stated that the prohibition against torture is void “in order to protect the American people.” There is no such caveat in the Eighth Amendment or the Geneva Convention.
These basic laws govern U.S. conduct domestically and internationally. George W. Bush, our elected executive, by his own admittance has violated them. Highly-placed (and unfortunately anonymous) sources have accused top administration officials of the same. The U.S. cannot continue as a nation dedicated to freedom, justice and other basic human rights until we purge the cancer we have allowed to fester in our government.

George W. Bush and all those listed in his Principals Committee, who discussed and approved torture and did not speak out against it, who kept the fact of their direct involvement hidden for years, are war criminals as much as the torturers themselves.

And, most horrifically, they will almost certainly escape justice, thanks to an apathetic United States.