FOREIGN INDICTMENTS OF US LEADERS INSANITY
TIME FOR STRAIGHT TALK, NOT POLITICS AND RETRIBUTION
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
Legal circles in Europe are actively moving to indict US leaders, including former President George W. Bush, for "waging aggressive war and crimes against humanity." The trials would require extradition to Europe and take place at the International Tribunal at the Hague, in the Netherlands. The courts were established by the United Nations Security Council but are, in reality, an offshoot of the Nuremberg Trials after World War 2.
The Hague system is not without critics, as were the trials in Nuremberg. Those who win wars or elections love putting their opponents on trial, manipulating the justice system for their own ends. This was called "Victor’s Justice." Ask Saddam Hussein how Victors Justice works.
The destruction of our system of just and impartial courts is, in fact, one of the key domestic crimes the Bush administration may be guilty of, with the scandalous conviction of Alabama Governor Don Siegleman the most glaring example. However, our history of covering up war crimes hardly started with Bush.
Nazi rocket scientists and industrial leaders who oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of slave laborers were quickly freed, either without trial or immediately after conviction. Japanese war criminals who openly practiced germ warfare in China, and murdered US POWs as ‘test subjects’ were brought to the US or allowed to resume positions of leadership in Japanese society. Google "731" for an eye opener.
International justice has little history of being just at all. Governments, be they France, Britain, Israel, Syria, Iran or dozens of others, openly commit hideous crimes against countries, groups or individuals they see as a threat, either through direct means or covertly. A French president has never been arrested for murdering Green Peace protesters. How can an American president be tried by a world of hypocrites? The number of world leaders with clean hands couldn’t fill a golf cart.
KANGAROO COURTS
For 8 years, the justice system in the US has been under attack. A look at traditional methods of selecting judges, who are, in reality, not elected, but chosen by local "political bosses" has given us an encylopedic record of legal abuses based on courts favoring the wealthy and powerful. Our legal system is based on money alone and everyone knows it. Innocent poor people, often of color, can be arrested tried and even executed with the only protest from Amnesty International.
This broken system is not 8 years old but closer to 230 and counting. Subjecting our leaders to the same abuses the rest of our citizens suffer may be justice. Thank heaven we have special ‘country club’ prisons for the rich and shameless, or at least those who haven’t lost their powerful friends or "little black books."
Increasingly, with highly partisan lawyers filling the ranks of the Justice Department and politically extremist judges holding many federal benches, including Veterans Appeals, our legal system has gotten itself a major ‘black eye.’ Trying top government officials, including a President, Vice President, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense and dozens of others may be nearly impossible to do in an impartial manner with courts stacked by political appointees. The fiasco of the Watergate Hearings was a lesson itself. Several Republican participants continually worked to stifle testimony, obscure facts and disrupt the process, even as damning testimony piled up.
We have states in the US where you can burn a homosexual alive on the steps of city hall with impunity. 30% of the people in the US believe the planet is less than 6000 years old. How can we put so many leaders on trial, no matter how blatant their guilt, without tearing our country apart?
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND THE GENEVA CONVENTION
One of the most rational statements made in favor of a domestic trial is in the statement made by former POW, Phillip Butler. Butler states:
So, what in the world has happened during the past eight years of the George W. Bush administration? The only defensible answer is that he and his subordinates have trampled our precious Constitution and the rule of law into the ground, while our elected members of Congress have stood idly and complicitly by. Our highest elected officials have utterly failed in their duty of greatest responsibility.
During these years, we have seen gross attempts to institutionalize torture. Our Constitution, Article VI, (2), commonly known as the "Supremacy" clause, clearly states that treaties made shall become "the supreme law of the land," thus elevating them to the level of constitutional law.
The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified in 1949, states in Article 17, "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." This and numerous other ratified treaties clearly stipulate that "prisoners" is an inclusive term that is not limited to any nation’s uniformed combatants.
Other gross Bush administration crimes, in addition to authorizing torture, of general and constitutional law include: 1) the use of "signing statements" to illegally refrain from complying with laws, 2) authorization of the illegal suspension of Habeas Corpus, 3) authorization of wire tapping and other intrusive methods to illegally spy on American citizens, 4) unilateral declaration and pre-emptive conduct of war in violation of US Constitution Article I, Section 8 (11).
The point made, of course, is that if we fail to prosecute for these crimes, we are no longer a nation of laws. The Geneva Convention is our moral authority to expect decent treatment for our own troops captured in battle and our justification for swift and sure retribution when the Convention is violated. President Bush sacrificed that moral authority, put all future American servicemen and women in mortal danger and placed America on the same level as the aggressor nations of World War 2.
PARTY POLITICS AND ‘SHOW TRIALS’
If any individual on Earth should fear putting former President Bush on trial, is should be President Obama. A clearly defined standard for accountability has never been established. American leaders have developed a system of ‘plausible deniability.’ King Henry II, in his request, "Will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest" established what has become the norm. President Bush could order an invasion, an illegal detention or torture with little more than a ‘wink and a nod.’
Even then, however, he managed to seek ill advised ‘legal authority’ for crimes and openly admitted, on many occasions, acts that may very well qualify as criminal acts. Never before has such a public record been left, seemingly with pride.
HUBRIS
With continual reference to "War on Terror" and "Crusades" the Bush administration went further than any modern government to instill fear and isolation into the public in order to facilitate a program of endless war, totalitarian policies at home and a war of ideas meant to reinstill medieval prejudices against both scientific and intellectual freedom.
Typified by hollow rhetoric of "Bring it on!" and "Mission Accomplished," decline, defeat and failure were blamed on invisible enemies in a manner typical of Hitler or Stalin. Instead of Jews or Trotskiites, Bush and his cronies were continually undermined by a liberal conspiracy of unnamed and undefined "tree huggers" and, if truth be told, "negro sympathizers."
RELATIVE JUSTICE OR REVENGE
If Bush administration crimes, be they torture, public corruption, domestic spying or ‘war for profit,’ go unpunished and ‘forgiven’ nothing any future government, be it President Obama and the Democrats or one of the lunatic fringe groups typified by Palin/Buchanan supporters, can ever be held to account.
We will simply be annoucing that America and her laws are only a joke. If any law can be violated for enough money or by those with enough power, nothing of America will be left but the stink of a corrupt dictatorship built on the foundations of 8 years of fear and ignorance.
Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran and regular contributor on poltical and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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